Luke 21: 5-19

Last Sunday's mass readings speak of the end times. We are approaching the end of the liturgical year.

While some people were speaking about
how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings,
Jesus said, "All that you see here--
the days will come when there will not be left
a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down."

Note that this prophecy of Jesus has already come true—long ago, in 70 AD. The temple these people were admiring was indeed torn down, with nothing left but the Western, “Wailing,” Wall, within forty years of the prophecy.

Not incidentally, this fact is used by academics like the Jesus Seminar to prove that the book of Luke was written after 70 AD. But this logic is valid, of course, only if Jesus was not really God, a false prophet, and, indeed, not even a good futurist.

And after all, couldn't any one of us stand beside the World Trade Centre—oops, too late, let's say the Khalifa Tower—and say, “this looks magnificent today, but some day all that will be left of this will be rubble.” And isn't this self-evidently true, in all cases?

In other words, Jesus is not making just one specific prediction about the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple here is merely representative of the physical world itself—all material things—and the prophecy is eternally true. It is something that is always happening, yet always also in the future.

But in the passage, the destruction of the temple is assumed by his listeners to be a sign of the end times—the end of the world. And Jesus does not deny this. This actually argues against the assumptions of the Jesus Seminar: if the words were written after 70 AD, the writer would know that this had happened and the end of time had not come.

But this leaves us with a puzzle: how can something be continually happening, and yet be a sign of the end times?

Elsewhere, Jesus refers to tearing down the temple, and raising it again in three days. In this latter case, is is fairly clear—the explanation is given in the Bible itself—that the “temple” referred to is his physical being. This is not arbitrary: it is literally true that, if our physical senses cease to exist, our body as the thing through which we make contact with the physical world, all physical things cease to exist so far as we are concerned; up to and including the Temple. So Jesus may be referring here as well not just to the transitory nature of the physical, but to the physical death of each one of us, which is, of course, subjectively, for each one of us the end of the physical world.

Understanding the comment in this way, we also make sense of Jesus's claim that the end times will come within the lifetimes of some of his listeners. Of course it will. That is to say, their deaths will come—and so will ours, his present listeners. We are all, always, living in the end times.

The fact that the Church commemorates the end times liturgically on an annual cycle reminds of us this.

Nobody knows the place or the hour of his own death, just as nobody knows the place or the hour of the end of time itself. It usually comes like a thief in the night. Time ends for each of us at that time.

This is not to say that there will not also, one day, be an end time for the physical world as a whole. But, the instant we each individually die, we are outside of time, as eternity is outside of time; it cannot be an infinite extention of time, because infinite extensions of anything are a logical impossibility. And so, being outside of time, once we die we are at that end time, each of us, individually. All those among Jesus's listeners at that time, and from this time to now, who have died in a state of grace, are already past the tribulations and living in the New Jerusalem, which already exists, and always has, in eternity (and “within us”).

Then they asked him,
"Teacher, when will this happen?
And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?"
He answered,
"See that you not be deceived,
for many will come in my name, saying,
'I am he,’ and 'The time has come.’
Do not follow them!

This seems to literally, plainly and straightforwardly warn that if anyone ever claims to be the Second Coming of Christ, or claims that they know when the end time is to come, and that it is near, this is itself proof that they are a false prophet.

This is, objectively, if you take a glance at history, a good rule to follow. Anyone declaring that, if we do not quickly fall in line behind them, the world will end, and we are all doomed; or, conversely, that if we all fall in behind them, heaven on earth will quickly come, and they will be among the elect; has always been a false prophet. So it is and was with “Global Warming,” Communism, Fascism, the sexual revolution, the Population Bomb, running out of oil, running out of water, and on and on—never mind the many pseudoreligious cults predicting an end to the world next Friday.

I think we can take it that, when the real thing happens, it will not happen in anything like this way. Either it will all be too obvious for doubt, Jesus descending in clouds of glory, or it will be totally unexpected, like that proverbial theif in the night; indeed, it will be both of these things. It will be deux ex machina, based on what the Bible, on close reading, seems to actually say.

When you hear of wars and insurrections,
do not be terrified; for such things must happen first,
but it will not immediately be the end."

“Wars and insurrections”--that is, wars and revolutions. “It will not immediately be the end” Seems to me the main point to take home to the bank here is not to be misled to suppose that any war or revolution can ever create an ideal society. There will be no “war to end all wars,” no revolution to end all oppression.

And yet, this also apparently says that such wars and revolutions are indeed instrumental, and must take place as part of the plan of salvation. They are not a complete waste of effort and of lives, but something needful. Presumably they do good, but the good they do is incremental. There is still a point to freedom rides, fighting Fascism, and so forth—to political participation.

This has to be so—if the end times and the perfection of the physical and social world were merely a matter of divine fiat, 1 why did God create man? 2 why doesn't God just do it now? So the achievement of the New Jerusalem must require human participation. We must all, indeed, have our part to play. We must “make the ways straight for the Lord,” so that he may come.

Then he said to them,
"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues
from place to place;
and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.

And have not all these things too already happened? Many times? All Jesus is saying here, perhaps, is that history will continue. The construction strongly suggests that these are additional examples of what must happen first, without suggesting that the end is at hand.

If we are right in identifying the “Fall of the Temple” partly with physical death, the point here may be that each of us who read this can expect to hear of all of these things, in our lifetimes, without it meaning that the end of the world has come; and conversely that the end of time always comes within our lifetime. Which generation has not, from Jesus's time until now, heard of wars, revolutions, earthquakes, famines, plagues, and signs such as eclipses in the sky?

So the point is that none of this ought to get us excited or thinking the world is about to end. Of course it is. So?

"Before all this happens, however,
they will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons,
and they will have you led before kings and governors
because of my name.

Following along, Jesus is therefore saying that this is the fate of any real Christian during his lifetime. It is not limited to those times and places where Christianity is officially under persecution.

Does this really happen to us all? Yes, it does; if not prison, or before the legal authorities, it happens at school. Note that “synagogues” at the time Jesus speaks were not places of worship (and still aren't, technically)—that was reserved for the Temple. The “synagogues” were and are, conceptually, the schools (“schul”). They became more central, of course, once the Temple fell, and the Jews needed to preserve a religious and cultural heritage distinct from their neighbours.

Jesus seems to be saying that, by their nature, schools, civil authorities, and social assemblies as much as prisons will always be oppressive to the truly religious. For us, all are prisons. They are necessarily committed to “this world”; the Christian is committed to the world to come. So, to the extent that any of us indeed must deal with—indeed, is, as we all are, subjected to—schools and courts and governments, we are being persecuted.

When Jesus says “because of my name,” is is silly to think this is the literal name “Jesus of Nazareth.” For one thing, that was not really Jesus's name; nobody ever called him that. And we cannot tell what his name really was, because we do not know his Aramaic dialect. We have no decent .mp3s or audio tapes on file. No--”my name” here means “my logos,” just as doing something “in the name of Elizabeth II” means in accordance with her laws and acknowledging her authority. Logos meaning something like “word” but also “underlying order.” Since Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light, what he means is something like “because of truth and right.”

Though governments and schools may be better or worse, necessarily, truth and right will never fully conform with what is being done in the schools and governments at any given time. The Christian is bound to always do and to say what is true and right, and must therefore always stand to some extent in contradiction to the schools, the courts, the assemblies. This necessarily always puts him at a disadvantage in comparison to the “children of this world,” who have no such constraints. They can always go along with whatever the school or court or law or regulation demands of them, and achieve preferment. For the same reason, they will inevitably rise to the top in any civil system, controlling and guiding it, increasing the dissonance and the difficulty for Christians.

Accordingly, it is the natural condition of the Chistian to be persecuted in this world. If you haven't experienced this, gentle reader, you're not a Christian.

It will lead to your giving testimony.
Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand,
for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.

This seems a remarkable claim, a promised miracle. Don't get a lawyer? Don't defend yourself? But it also seems to be true.

This is a promise of direct divine inspiration at the moment of persecution; and that is a good definition of what art is.

It also illuminates the ending of the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.... You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.... let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven.”

Isn't this saying the same thing? “Good works” here (I even faked the translation; in the English of the bible version I quote, it is actually written as “good deeds”) cannot here mean, as you might suppose, acts of charity. For these, Jesus says only a few moments later in the same sermon, are supposed to be concealed, not displayed in public. Your left hand ought not, in charity, to know what your right hand is doing. So what else could he mean? “Good works” here means, broadly, works of art. Physical expressions of the spirit, good in thre sense of being beautiful.

By the same token, Jesus cannot mean hear that such testimony, given in a court or an assembly, will save one from being imprisoned or killed. It is not a matter of coming up with an irrefutably clever case at law. Were this so, how is it that he failed all the martyrs? And how is it that Jesus says in the previous passage that some will indeed be put in prison, and in the next breath that some will be killed?

No; but if a good, sincere person is persecuted, and they open themselves to grace, without cunning, they produce art, and powerful art. It's a deadly accurate description of the creative process. Some of what is esteemed art, it is true, comes from other spirits. But the greatest art is God's ongoing revelation to us, and it indeed cuts through all the social scams to speak directly, irrefutably. It does not necessarily rescue the individual artist from his own persecutions. But, over time, it rescues us all from all. This is the way we build the New Jerusalem, itself described unambiguously as a work of art, a city with walls encrusted with jewels—by singing under the hammer blows.

Inspiration may express itself as well in ways not immediately recognizable as art; little ways, and large ways. Quite literally, for example, Joan of Arc, at her trial, was able to respond immediately to prosecutorial questions with a theological shrewdness that ought to have been far beyond the abilities of an uneducated peasant girl. It did not matter to her fate—but the trial record remains, like a beacon. Divine nspiration can appear, too, in daily conversation, daily work, and in more intimate matters that never reach the world as instances of Art with a big capital A. It can give one a beautiful singing voice, another a fabulous sense of humour, another the ability to teach engagingly, or to heal, and so forth—the gifts of the spirit.

You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends,
and they will put some of you to death.

So much for “family values,” eh? The righteous are not that much less likely to be persecuted within the family as in the school. Any social group carries the plague of “this world.”

Our fairy tales, being art, used to understand this, and warn children of it.

Beware of movements that seek to suppress art. It is a likely sign of the anti-Christ.

You will be hated by all because of my name,
but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

Jesus seems here to contradict himself: some will be put to death, but not a hair on their head will be destroyed, and if they persevere they will live? Let's parse it: it works if

1. there is life after the physical death, the death of the body, and not just that, but
2. even the death of the body itself is only apparent, not real.

This still seems, at second glance, close to self-contradictory—physical death does not harm the body?

Yet it is true.

Let us simply suppose tha Jesus means the reference to hair instead to serve as a metaphor. After all, the usual signal that a metaphorical sense is intended—in the hands of any good author—is that the literal meaning is not a possible one.

So let's look more closely at hair. Are our bodies like our hair? We can be severed from our hair, after all, at any time, without this meaning that we cease to exist. So perhaps his point is that the death of the physical body is like cutting off one's hair—the hair lies, cold and lifeless, on the barber's floor, but we ourselves, being our souls, sashay out the barber's door into Paradise essentially unchanged and uninjured, not even ill at ease.

But then again, in another hair-exampled sense, neither do even our bodies really die—any more than it makes sense to speak of the hair dying when no longer connected to our bodies. Hairs do not die because they never lived; and the matter which constitutes them is neither created nor destroyed. So too, indeed, with our bodies at and after death. They do not cease to exist, do they? Matter is neither created nor destroyed. They remain what they always were: constantly changing collections of molecules.

Death has no power to sting.

In making this point, Jesus is advising his listeners, as his final point, not to fuss or worry about the end of the world at all, in either sense. Death is not something a Christian need trouble himself with. Let the dead bury their own dead.