SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2022
THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
FIRST READING: MALACHI 3:19-20
RESPONSORIAL PSALM: PSALMS 98:5-9
SECOND READING: 2 THESSALONIANS 3:7-12
GOSPEL: LUKE 21:5-19
This Sunday’s Gospel presents us with the famous discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world. If you have a hard time understanding Our Lord’s sayings concerning the end, don’t worry too much. His immediate audience also did not, likewise most of the first Christians. At Thessalonica, believers drew mistaken conclusions from our Lord’s sayings and thought it was useless to weary themselves, to work or commit themselves to long-term projects.
Those who are below twenty-five years probably will not remember the term “y2k” or “The Year 2000.” The term scared the heck out of lots of people. From the 1990s, a kind of fearful hysteria began to grow. The Jehovah’s Witnesses including some scientists and mathematicians were convinced the so-called ‘millennium bug’ will crash computers worldwide and bring life as we know it to a halt. One man was determined to be ready; Steve Lawson. He was a 45-year-old computer systems analyst at Oklahoma. Steve was absolutely convinced that when the clock struck midnight to begin January 1, 2000, the ‘millennium bug’ was going to unleash a disaster of epic proportions, electricity will crash, communication networks worldwide will fail, financial markets will crash and banks will close, trains will swerve off the rail tracks, planes will fall from the sky and the entire world will be engulfed in unprecedented panic.
Steve decided to be ready. At midnight on December 31, 1999, Steve and his family were safely held up in an underground steel-reinforced bunker with enough piles of food and medicine. They had their generator and water. They had lots of guns including 4 M 16 riffles and plenty of ammunition. When afterwards he was asked, if he considered himself an extremist, Steve replied, “I just wanted to be ready.”
The Gospel today makes it clear that humanity is waiting for an event of much greater importance than y2k, the return of Jesus Christ. The question is, are we ready? Jesus was standing inside the great temple of Jerusalem. The outward face of the temple was completely covered with massive plates of gold. So, with the rising of the sun, it blazes like fire and people shield their eyes. The pillars holding the columns are marbles of incredible height. They are surrounded by great vines carved in gold; each is larger than a living man. This temple was where God dwelt among men. And for the Jews, the assurance that they were God’s favored and chosen people. This was the bedrock of their cultural and religious identity. The disciples are in awe of the magnificence of the temple and Jesus begins to talk about the destruction of the temple.
Imagine the impact of the words of Jesus. People marvel at the incredible sight of the temple and praise its splendor. Suddenly, Jesus says, everything you see here will be thrown out and destroyed. Obviously startled, the disciples turned to him and asked, “when will these things happen?” What signs will there be? Jesus gives a litany of terrifying apocalyptic images of chaos and destruction. Was Jesus referring to the destruction of the temple or to the end of the world? Scripture scholars answer yes to both. The Jewish people had rejected God’s plan for salvation and murdered His prophets and now they are going to reject and murder His Son. In rejecting God’s plan, they put their trust in this magnificent edifice of marble and stone and it became an idol. They could go on rejecting God’s plan and feel secure because they had their idol. Jesus says this whole thing will be destroyed.
Forty years later, in 70 AD, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman army. It was a bloodbath. The Romans burned the temple to the ground and literally removed every piece of stone. Over a million Jews died and over 100,000 were either displaced or taken into slavery. The temple was completely destroyed and the prophecy of Jesus came to a frightening fulfilment. When Jesus speaks to the people of his time and warns them of coming destruction, he is also speaking to us and warning us of his final coming. Days of wrath and persecution will come first and they are already here. We might ask like the disciples, when will these things happen? What sign will there be? How will Jesus answer us? Same way – “many will come in my name seeking to deceive you, nations will rise against nations, kingdoms will rise against kingdoms, there will be powerful earthquakes, famines and awesome signs in the sky. It will be a time of intense persecution.
Jesus is telling us all these because he wants us to be ready. When Cardinal Wojtyla visited the USA for the first time in 1976, he made this prophetic statement, ‘we are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through, the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel.’ If you look around, you will find that many people have stopped going to Church, some still come to Church but do not care about the sacraments. There is apostasy on a massive scale. It really feels like the lights are going off and we are plunging into darkness. Our temptation is the same as the Jews – to cling to the things of this world, to seek answers, refuge and assurances in manmade things. It didn’t work for the Jews and will not work for us because everything will be shaken.
We must be ready. Ready to suffer for the love of God. Jesus was very honest with us and believed us enough not to offer us an easy path but a way of heroes and saints. We must be ready to suffer for the love of God. In Second Timothy 3: 12 St. Paul said, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” These persecutions are part of God’s plan: they happen because He lets them happen which He does in order to draw greater good out of them. Persecution provides Christians with an opportunity to bear witness to Christ.
Finally, he tells us to fear nothing. No matter how powerful the wicked and arrogant seem to be, as the first reading says, the final victory belongs to those who fear the Lord’s name. Jesus said, ‘by patient endurance, you will save your lives.’ To those who love him, he gives the grace to persevere through the most savage persecutions, tribulations and calamities. Steve Lawson said, “I just want to be ready.” Let us make those words our own not simply with words but by the witness of a life that is oriented to God and committed to holiness.
Happy Sunday,
Fr Chidi Onwuka m.ss.cc.