ON THIS, the second last Sunday of the Church year, we usually reflect on the end times. When or how our world will end we have no idea. The end may be a very long way ahead or, using the awesome technology we humans have developed, we could bring it to an end in a relatively short time. Some are saying that if we continue treating our planet as badly as we are doing now, we may not see the end of this century.
Of much more practical interest for each one of us is when our own personal end will come. Again it may be quite a long way off humanly speaking or, given the fragility of our human existence, it could happen in the very near future. We see examples of this every day
A dire vision
The Gospel from Luke has Jesus present a dire vision of the future. Sad to say, practically every detail has been realised and we are not finished yet.
Jesus begins by commenting on the Temple of Jerusalem. Some people were commenting on its “fine stonework and votive offerings”. The Temple of Herod was one of the most massive buildings in its time and was not yet fully completed. It was the heart and pride of all Jewish life; the very symbol of God’s presence among them. Yet Jesus tells his hearers, “All these things you are staring at now – the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed.” They must have looked at him with absolute astonishment. It would be as if one had said to New Yorkers early in September 2001 that the World Trade Centre towers would be reduced to rubble within a few days. It was a totally far-fetched and unrealistic prediction. (In fact, some people described seeing the towers collapsing as something totally surreal.)
Only too true
Yet what Jesus said was absolutely true. Only about 40 years after he spoke these words, the mighty Temple had been razed to the ground in the siege of Jerusalem. The occasion is commemorated in bas reliefs on the Arch of Titus in the Forum at Rome where the treasures of the Temple are seen being carried off in triumph by the pagan Romans.
For many Jews – and even for many of the Christians – it must have seemed like the end of their civilised world. This is partly reflected in the Letters to the Thessalonians, from which the Second Readings of these Sundays are being taken. A few hundred years later, St Augustine and his contemporaries had similar feelings when they saw the city of Rome falling into the hands of the northern barbarians’. Yet, out of that grew cultures even more spectacular. Could ours too be replaced?
End is near?
As Jesus says, in the presence of such events people calling themselves the long-awaited Messiah emerge or others begin proclaiming that ‘The end is near’. But Jesus says such people are to be ignored. Just as they are to be ignored in our own time.
Many other terrible things will happen – wars and revolutions, natural disasters, famines, endemic diseases, earthquakes but none of them is a sign of the end. It is not yet the time for the Lord to come in final judgement. Still less, are these things to be seen as signs of God’s anger or vengeance. Our God is not like that. There are many explanations why natural disasters take place and for other disasters we need look no further than the greed, envy, hatred and fear that dominates so many peoples’ lives.
Seed of faith
But Jesus is not yet finished. For there are some special things in store for his own followers and they must not be surprised at them. Again, everything he says has been realised not only in the very early Church persecutions but down the centuries to our own day. “Men will seize you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name – and that will be your opportunity to bear witness.”
The word ‘martyr’ comes from the Greek word for ‘witness’. These events far from being sources of fear and anxiety are to be seen as opportunities to give witness to the Kingdom, Jesus’ vision of the human life. Many who have died appalling deaths have in time come to be sources of community pride and models for others to follow. It was well said in the early Church that the blood of martyrs (those giving witness to their faith) was the seed of faith for others.
Do not worry
Nor should people be anxious about how they are to behave or what they are to say in times of persecution. “You are not to prepare your defence, because I myself will give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict.” There is abundant evidence that this promise has been kept. I myself have met Catholics who were arrested for their religious beliefs and put under intense round-the-clock interrogation. They came out from this experience stronger than ever.
I suppose the most difficult thing for us Christians to be told is that we may be rejected or, worse, betrayed by our own nearest and dearest. It is difficult to be told that our lives, based on truth, love and justice for all, will bring down on our heads so much hatred.
Loud and clear
Yet the message of Jesus is loud and clear: “Hang in there because the ultimate victory will be yours.” This is not simply a utopian promise. It means that in the long run Truth, Love and Justice will prevail. A review of the history of the past centuries, in spite of all that has gone wrong, has shown continuing progress in all areas of human values.
Nothing sown, nothing reaped
What we have been saying can be summed up in the words of the First Reading from the prophet Malachi. The end, when it comes, will be bad news for those who have led lives of pure self-interest and sacrificed others for it. They will be burnt up, left without root or stalk. They will have sown nothing; they will reap nothing. They chose to go their own way without God and God will allow them to continue doing so. They will lie in the bed they have made. But for those who have based their lives on being loyal to Truth and have spent their lives in the service of their God and seeking the well-being of their brothers and sisters, “the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing in its rays”.
How prepare?
How then are we to get ready for that day when God will call us to himself? There is no need to live in fear and anxiety for the future. Rather, we are to focus on the present time, on today. Paul, writing (the Second Reading) to the Christians at Thessalonika in northern Greece, tells them to do their work, to pull their weight and to be responsible for each other.
At this time in the history of the early Church (the letters to the Thessalonians are the earliest of Paul’s letters) there was a general belief that Jesus was going to return in the very near future, even in their own lifetime. As a result, it seems that some of the Christians had adopted the notion that, if Jesus is coming so soon, it is not worth doing anything and they apparently were trying to persuade others to be like them. “Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else’s.”
Believing for today
Paul has no time for such an attitude. On the contrary, he says, “In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat.” It is advice that each one of us should follow.
For true believers, Christ is always present and at the centre of his life. We are called to seek and find him in all things, in every person, in every place, in every experience. How better prepare for the future than to love and serve Jesus in others at every moment of every day? To do this is to find in all the ups and downs of our own lives and of the world around us a haven of peace and security. “Come, Lord Jesus, come – not just tomorrow but today. Now.”