11.19.13 Luke 21:5-19

And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said, "As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." And they asked him, "Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?" And he said, "See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them. And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once." Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness. Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. Luke (21:5-19)

So, I'm beginning to wonder if God is trying to tell me something. For the second consecutive week there was an event that led to my not delivering a homily at our 10:30a.m. Mass. This week it was the sound of cellular devices announcing that there was a tornado warning in effect -- with the thick walls and rain falling on the church's aluminum shake roof we could not hear the sirens -- that drove us underground and cancelled the sermon. We at St. Andrew's are praying for those who lost houses and possessions in the storm, including one of our families, but at the same time, we are grateful that the human loss was light relative to storms of this magnitude in other places.

The devastation wreaked by a single weather episode, however, causes me to look at the Gospel that was read Sunday in a different light. Jesus says to those who are marveling at the Temple,  "As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." Everything that we have in this life, even a building as spectacular as the Temple, is temporary. 

Now it is worth mentioning that the Temple of Jesus' day was actually the third Temple to be built on what we would call the "Temple Mount". The first Temple, built by Solomon, was the most spectacular, as described in I Kings, was destroyed when the Babylonians invaded around 586 B.C.. The Temple was rebuilt under Zerubabbel around 515 B.C. That Temple was in ruins when Harod  rebuilt and expanded it shortly before Jesus was born. Each Temple had fallen into the hands of the enemies of the Jews as they had fallen away from obeying God. I should also note here that the third Temple would be destroyed by the Romans in due time.

 We regularly come face-to-face with the fact that everything in this life is temporary, and that is the first point of this Gospel. The second point is that we just don't get to know when things will come to an end.

Jesus says that many will try to predict the end, but we are not to listen to them. He predicted that there would be those, both con-men and the sincerely misguided, that would spend their days trying to predict the end, but we are not to listen to them, or try to predict ourselves. But, we are to be ready to face the trouble that is to come. And, trouble will come.

The conflict here, as it was in Jesus' day, is between the understanding that we are not made for this world, and that which believes that this is all that there is -- the eternal vs. the temporal. The evil one works very hard to convince us that we should seek comfort and pleasure in this world because eternity doesn't matter. Jesus, on the contrary, came into the world to secure the eternal, not the temporary. This conflict becomes violent for us, as it did for Jesus. We need to remember, however, that it was through the violence of those that opposed Jesus that he won the eternal victory. 

We are here reminded that following Christ is not easy. Bad things regularly happen to good people, and, worse yet, good things happen to bad people. Here, Jesus reminds us that there is nothing that anyone can do to us in this life that can take eternity away, and the eternity that He offers is better than anything that we can imagine.

For that reason, we are to endure the suffering that might come in this life with patient endurance. We are to witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior of our lives, especially when we are persecuted. It has been under persecution that the Church has seen its greatest growth throughout history as the blood of the martyrs has long been its seed. We must carry the Gospel to the world that desperately needs to hear it, no matter what the personal cost, depending on Jesus to give us the courage to endure and the words to say in every situation. We do this not out of any masochistic tendency, but because we know that whatever the suffering endured, the reward is worth it, even to the point of drawing others to Christ through our suffering.

Let us live our lives with our eyes focused on eternity. Not that we should ignore the things of this life, and those who suffer, but that everything that we do should be done with a focus on Jesus as the only way to enter eternity where pain and suffering are no more, only the joy of being with the One who created us aswe were created to be, forever.