DAY 113

THE END OF THE WORLD?

2 Samuel 16, 17 & 18 and Luke 17:20 – 37

The Old Testament today continues the “twists and turns” of the rebellion against King David, led by of all people, his son Absalom. As I read through chapters I am struck by the detailed little stories that accompany this time in David’s life. Remarkably, when David hears of his son’s death, even though he was trying to overthrow David, David wept for him.

I wonder if Absalom had not gotten ahead of his father the king, if he would have been king. At some point in these events I wonder if David thought it was all coming to an end.

The end of the world: it has supplied the theme for many movies. Some people become fascinated with predictions of the “apocalypse.” Last year, the idea that the Mayan Calendar “predicted” the end of the world on December 21, 2012 captured people’s (and late night comedians) attention.

Many novels, religious ones, have speculated about what it would all look like. Recently the Left Behind series was popular in some circles. It took a literally reading of The Revelation to St. John and projected this idea into the lives of some fictitious characters.

In the New Testament Jesus is asked, “When is the kingdom coming?” Jesus says explicitly “The Kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed.” He even reinforces that point saying the days are coming “when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.”

What does Jesus say they will see, and is he talking about the end of the world?

First Jesus says (again) that the Son of Man must “suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” When I read this it is easy to have the attitude of “Yes, yes, I already know that…” But I need to slow down and remind myself. This teaching from Jesus is not being accepted by the disciples. He will tell them over and over and they won’t get it. Many of them, all the way to Good Friday, are expecting him to lead a military revolt against the Roman occupiers. In the first century Jewish mind the Messiah was a political Messiah.

So, the first thing Jesus says “they will see” is the Son of Man suffering!

The next question is whether or not Jesus is talking about the “end of the world” or something else.

There are at least two schools of thought. One is, “Yes he is talking about the end of it all.” For this school of thought the phrase in verse 30 “…so it will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed” specifically refers to the Second Coming of Jesus when He is revealed in the manner that the Revelation to St. John describes.

The second school of thought suggests that Jesus is talking about the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Whenever I bring that up some people are shocked. But there is serious scholarship to support this point of view. In Luke:

·         Jesus has been taking the Jewish people to task for their failure to grasp that the Kingdom of God is not a political kingdom. It is to be a Kingdom of Peace, governed by a Yahweh and guided by the Law. It is to be this Kingdom that they were the Chosen People to inaugurate in this world.

·         He has been challenging them that this Kingdom would be taken away from them, especially if they continued to pursue this political agenda.

o   Consider some of the parables he has told: the great banquet (14:12-24), the dishonest manager (16:1-13) and the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19-31) – these all “call out” the religious that are in power for their failure to use what God has given them for the kingdom.

·         He has repeatedly offered this Kingdom to others – the tax collectors and sinners – consider the three parables of the lost in chapter 15.

·         And for those that do follow, He has repeatedly told them that this path will take him to his death, and that if they want to follow, they must also lose their lives to gain them.

Therefore some scholars say that the destruction of Jerusalem is what He is predicting. After all He has said “only the Father knows the hour.” These scholars suggest that Jesus can see that God will actually use the Romans to fully destroy the Temple and remove the Sadducees and Pharisees from power, but only, only after the Son of Man is revealed. These scholars say the Son of Man has been revealed in the Resurrection.

The destruction of the Temple and the religious associated with it, is God’s vindication of the Jesus because the force that so completely opposed him has been destroyed (and they point out that even the reference to vultures might be an allusion to Rome – for the Greek word for vulture and eagle is the same, because they viewed them as from the same family – and the eagle was a Roman symbol.)

In this context the passage stills hold out for us the importance of understanding Jesus’ teaching. It reminds us of the history of how we, the religious, can confuse Jesus’ teaching. I we can hold those past errors in front of us, we then, by God’s grace, can better follow him – for we “are now the people chosen by God to reveal His love to the world.” Today, especially in America, we keep seeing Jesus’ call to follow as yielding a big institutional church. Don’t get me wrong I like church – hey I am the Dean of a Cathedral. I also appreciate how an institution can do much good – but, and this is BIG  – I need to not get the institution ahead of its Founder – I always need to be following the King.