33RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Mal 4:1-2a; Ps 98
2Thes 3:7-12; Lk 21:5-19
JESUS OUR SURE HOPE AND SIGN FOR THE END
As we approach the end of the year, the liturgical year especially, our readings bring our minds to the end times. In thinking about the end times, our catechism teaches us to meditate on the four last things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.
The first reading from Malachi talks of “the day”. This day comes burning like an oven. This burning of “the day” will have different effects on different people. For the evil and the arrogant it shall be a painful experience. This fire shall burn them to their roots. It is a total annihilation. There shall be nothing left of them. But for the righteous, it shall be a day of vindication, healing, reward and rest. Where will you belong? That day will you be vindicated or punished? This is no time for positive affirmation of claim to heaven. This is the time to take stock of our lives to see whether we have cooperated enough with God’s grace.
Our gospel from Luke 21:5-19, seeks to give us some direction in this regard. The gospel places Jesus in Jerusalem, in the Temple area. He noticed that some people were admiring the Temple adorned with noble stones and votive offerings. In fact, it was said of this Temple that it was just magnificent. Josephus, a historian at the time, recorded that anytime the suns rays touched this edifice it was simply a beautiful sight to behold.
Jesus’ reaction to the peoples wonder about the beauty of the Temple was to predict its fall and doom. He says “All that you see here – the days will come where there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown away” (Lk 21:6). True to his words, the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in about 70AD.
Just as the Temple with all its beauty fell and was destroyed, so is the end of all things in this world including the Temples of our bodies and all that we own. The people focused on the lavish external furnishings but failed to see the spiritual bankruptcy , the hypocrisy(Lk 11:37-54) oppression( and lack of affection and compassion behind the beautiful edifice.
For us the Temple could mean our lives and the things we hold dear. The noble stones that decorated the Temple represent for us the things in which we find worth and nobility. These may political, social, economic and religious. For Jesus the nobility of our lives does not lie in how much power we have, but how that helps us to create a community of love, justice, peace and prosperity for all. It does not lie in how rich we are but how that helps us to alleviate the problems of the poor. Not in how intelligent we are, but how kind and considerate we are towards others.
The destruction of the Temple with the votive offering refers to our religious lives that are full of empty religious practices with no real conversion.
When Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple, it filled the disciples with some anxiety and fear. They asked for signs. Why?
This is because for the Jews, the Temple played a very important role in their lives. It stood for the presence of God in their midst. But their problem was that they forgot God himself and focused on the edifice. When you lose the purpose and goal of worship, which is God, all that you do is meaningless and secular. Worship is obsolete without God.
The word Luke uses to describe the destruction of the Temple is the Greek Kataluo. It is the word from which we derive the English, catastrophe (the total destruction demolishing of something). Catastrophe is what happens when all that we trusted in is destroyed and shattered. When your political power or influence, riches, intelligence and religious influence are shattered what will become of you. The world and all it promises therefore is useless, it shall surely fail and end. But Jesus never fails. He never ends. He is eternal, so is his touch and friendship.
Jesus did not give them a sign but only warned them to ignore those who claim they have the knowledge of when the end will come. They are not to interpret wars and natural disasters as signs of the end.
This is because the sign was already with them. By his birth, preaching, death and resurrection the sign has already been given. In Jesus we need not fear the destruction of the world because he cannot be destroyed. It doesn’t matter your struggles, especially of the spiritual life, never lose Jesus.
May Jesus be our Anchor in the Last days. May he keep us safe in his arms.
God bless you.
By Fr. Delight Arnold Carbonu
