Nov. 24, 2022 – Luke 21:20-28
Jesus continues his warnings about what is to happen both in Jerusalem and at the end of all things. Biblical and apocalyptic imagery, also found in Old Testament prophecies, should not be taken as an accurate description of what will actually happen some 40 years later. Jesus is emphasizing not so much the actual events as their cause: the faithlessness and corruption of so many for whom destruction was the inevitable result. Therefore he calls them the “days of retribution,” not pointing to God’s vengeance, but the natural result of the evil and corruption of which Scripture is, above all, the prophets speak. “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its devastation is near” (21:20).
The verb see [horáō] is linked to a specific historical event, the destruction of Jerusalem. Shortly thereafter it appears
again, this time in relation to the final day of history: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming on a cloud with great power and glory” (21:27). Two different and infinitely distant events interwoven on the same page. It is an invitation to always hold together the today of history with the time in which everything is fulfilled. The first see refers to a dramatic event, the one in which the justice of men will be manifested with unprecedented violence; these will be the days of wrath, days of great suffering for all that region and for the entire people of Israel. In the time of desolation, when everything is clouded, we are called to fix our gaze on the final day, when the Son of Man will come with great power and glory. It is the day of God! On that day that which even now appears to those who look at history with the eyes of faith will be clearly manifested.
“Lift up your heads, for your deliverance is at hand.” This statement of Jesus that concludes today’s Gospel passage is a source of comfort and hope for all of us. The Lord does not come to judge us or to lay unbearable burdens on our fragile shoulders, to impose on us the game of law and regulations that tend to cage us in a cold legalism. The Lord comes to set us free. Loosed from the bonds of our selfishness we are called to build new heavens and new lands, to deposit in the barrenness of this earth the small seed of the “Kingdom of God.” We are called to be builders of peace: of a new economic system based on solidarity and not on profit; of a world where there will be no more tears of the poor, orphans and widows.
Even my sin will be erased and, made free through God’s mercy, I will be able to fly high in heaven. Behold, the many “Jerusalem’s” of this world are about to be torn down, “Lift up your heads, for your deliverance is at hand.”
For the good workers…
For those who have tried to live according to the vision and values of the Gospel, for those who have sought and found Jesus in all the people and events of their lives, for those who have spent hours in intimate dialogue with Jesus, it is the time of final deliverance, a time when there will be no more sorrows, no more tears, no more labors, no more disappointments. Rather, they will enter an uninterrupted time of love and union, of freedom and peace, of joy and consolation.
P Joby Kavungal RCJ