Luke 21:5-19
We’re in the middle of November right now, which means that we’re preparing for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks & we’re getting ready for the end of our Church year. Advent will usher in our new liturgical year right after Thanksgiving, starting 4 weeks of preparations for the coming of Christ’s birth at Christmas. Our readings today set the tone for the end our liturgical year & for the beginning of Advent, but perhaps the harshness of the readings is a bit of a shock, with Jesus foretelling the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, warning us not to believe the alarmists & false prophets among us, & alerting us as to the difficult times ahead.
Ever since Jesus’ death & resurrection, the faithful have been anticipating the end times that Jesus foretold. Even though in today’s Gospel we hear Jesus telling us that the end times would not occur immediately, that 1st generation in the early Church believed that the end times were imminent based upon other teachings from Jesus, that the end times would certainly happen in their own lifetime. Well, here we are, almost 2000 years later, & we are still awaiting the end times. Yet, in the centuries that have passed since the Gospel of Luke was written, we continue to witness the events that Jesus told us about: wars & insurrections; earthquakes, famines, & plagues. Look at what has happened to us in our own country in recent years: we’ve witnessed the rise of terrorism & the attacks of 9/11; Hurricane Katrina will forever be etched in the memory of all of us in Mississippi; & in our own town of Yazoo City, many are still recovering from the tornado that hit here this year.
Luke’s Gospel was written soon after the Temple was actually destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, so Jesus’ message of persevering through trials & tribulations would have hit home to the believers in the early Church. We don’t face the same sort of persecutions today, but in other ways, our faith & our religion also are under attack. Perhaps indifference & apathy are the greatest enemies of our faith today. Many seem to take the Church & their faith for granted, thinking that it will always be there for them, thinking that they don’t have to do much more than a minimal effort, that others will take care of the preparations & the hard work & the sacrifices that the practice of our faith requires. A parishioner I know in Jackson told me that her sons in high school & in college call the mass that is held on Sunday evenings the “last chance mass,” meaning that if they couldn’t fit mass into their busy weekend schedule, they could always make it to the last mass of the weekend as a last resort. What a difference that is compared to a young man I visited in the county prison here in Yazoo City just a couple of weeks ago, how he had not been able to receive the Eucharist for several months due to his incarceration, how tears of joy streamed down his cheeks for being able to receive communion as a sign of encouragement & hope in such a difficult time in his life.
It’s important for us to always remember that the kingdom of God has a two-fold dimension: it’s already here with Jesus & his ministry, with the presence of the Holy Spirit & the body of Christ in his Church. Yet, there is a fulfillment of God’s kingdom that is not yet here, that will be fulfilled at the end times when Christ will come again. We do not know when he will come, but we can proclaim with certainty that he will come again just as he foretold.
We prepare for the coming of Jesus in the practice of our faith – we will prepare for the coming of Jesus into the world & into our lives as we will soon journey through the holy season of Advent in a couple of weeks. Perhaps the message that we can take away from this stern Gospel warning is one of trust: trusting in Jesus, trusting in our faith, trusting that we will preserve through all the trials & tribulations that we have to endure. We are not to wait for the end times to come in order to find the courage we need to endure – we are to learn from Jesus’ wisdom & teaching, we are to testify & witness to Jesus & his ministry, as we travel along our journey of faith.
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