It is Enough to of Christ
Imagine after spending so many years, resources and energy, to build a very beautiful house for you and for many generations after you. And people, as they are passing by, are admiring the glory and the beauty of the house. On the day of the opening of the house, as people are congratulating you and rejoicing with you for your good work, then comes one revered man who says to you: “Well….rejoice now because very soon, this house will be destroyed either by a heavy wind, by fire outbreak, or by an uncontrollable flood”. I wonder what your reaction would be. People like me will make sure that the person signs an undertaking in the Police station that should anything happen to the house, he should be held responsible. The person must either be totally sick and pessimistic, or he has evil plans.
This analogy is close to what Jesus did in Lk 21:6. The Jewish people have two things that clearly spell their identity: the Davidic kingship and the temple. To take away these two things from them, is to take away what they are. This is why exilic experience remains the worst thing that could have happened to them because during the Babylonian exile, they had no king nor temple. The first temple built by Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586/7 BCE, an attack that led to the exile of the people of God to Babylon. When they came back from exile, they started to rebuild the temple, because of what it represents for them.
This second temple was completed by Herod the Great in 20-18 BCE. It took the people time to build the temple. And Jesus is here telling them that it is of no use admiring the temple because very soon, even one block will not be found on another. That is to say, Jesus prophesies a total destruction of the temple. What would make Jesus speak like that? If he claims to be the Son of God, and the temple represents the meeting place of God and his people, how can Jesus be so bold to speak against the temple?
Imagine Pope Francis coming out at St. Peter’s Square, with thousands of tourists from all over the world, who admire the basilica. And all of a sudden, Pope Francis begins to tell them “Don’t mind this beauty and glory, very soon this edifice will be a thing of the past”. Well, the media handlers will grow from millionaires to billionaires. Unlike the Jews, our identity is not linked to a structure or a set up. Our identity is who we are: the children of God. And this is not something outside of us but it is what we are. This means that everywhere we are, people should always look at us and admire the beauty and glory of God which we carry in ourselves.
When Jesus has said this, the people there asked him two things: the time and the sign. Why did they ask him only for these two things? If I was there, I would have asked: by who? And why? The people understood that Jesus was talking about another attack on them by external forces. The first exile and the temple destruction came to them unprepared (even though prophets like Isaiah [First Isaiah] and Jeremiah warned them). And by this time, the Jews were already under Roman empire.
So, if the temple would be destroyed again (which would also mean another severe war for the Jews), they wanted to be sure of when and if possible, get a possible sign that will indicate the arrival of the time. But Jesus was not talking about the attack that would come to the Jews as a nation, but a persecution that his new people will face. He went on to discuss about this persecution, the things that will happen but not as signs for the arrival of the time. While the people were interested in knowing the time and the sign of what we can now call ‘the end of time’, Jesus gives importance to what his believers will suffer in his name, and what will be done in his name, then he highlights what should be the attitude of his disciples.
The Attitude Expected of Jesus’s Disciple in the Midst of Persecution
It is of no importance for Christ’s believers and disciples to be anxious about the time and the sign of the coming of the Son of man, or the end time. Yes…they will suffer many things, not for any other reason but because they are disciples of Christ. There will be confusions, wars etc. As these things will be happening, with believers suffering for the sake of Christ, some others will come, presenting themselves as Christ.
They will come in the name of Christ, and camouflage as offering what may seem as consolation and solutions to people’s problems and hardships. But they are neither Christ, nor of Christ. They are deceivers. Even when all these things should be happening, believers are not to seek in them, the arrival of the time, or allow themselves to believe that the time is here. The only thing that is required of a believer is the steadfastness in keeping the faith. No matter what is happening, the gaze of the believer should always be on Christ, living as Christ has taught and never allowing himself/herself to be deceived by any other mild teaching. It is not left for a believer to fight for Christ against those who will come in his name to deceive others. Christ does not ask us to go violently against such persons. He only asks us one thing: NOT TO GO AFTER THEM (v.8).
To go after someone, in the biblical terms, means to be a disciple of that person, to begin to follow the person, adopting his teachings, believes and practices, and allowing oneself be guided by their activities. We have only one assignment: to always and everywhere be sons and daughters of Christ. This reminds me of an advice given to me by my spiritual director just few days before my ordination. He said to me: “Henry, you can never anticipate all the temptations and troubles that may come to you as a priest. Some of them will be unexpected, many will be against your accurate expectation. The only thing that will matter for your priestly life is that you always desire and struggle, always and everywhere, to be a holy priest.
Once, you have it in your mind that ‘my mission is to be a holy and a happy priest’, then you do not need to worry doing all the calculations of the things that will come your way and how you will respond to them, because your desire and consciousness of being a holy priest will always do the work”. Exactly this is the point Jesus tries to communicate to the followers. He does this, to the extent that he tells us never to worry about what and how we will respond to persecutions that will come to us.
The only thing that is important is that we should always be found believing in Christ and living as his own.
This is exactly the problem St. Paul encountered among the believers and he has to address it (2 Thess 3:7-12). In the First letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul writes to them about the Second coming of Christ (1 Thess 4:13-5:11). Reading this, the people understood that Christ’s coming is imminent and therefore, many of them stopped doing anything but to wait for the Lord to come. They stopped working, they stopped living their community lives. They were only preparing themselves and waiting for a sign that shows the arrival of Parousia.
Now, Paul has to correct this kind of attitude. The people must continue living their lives, doing everything that they are required to do for their life here on earth, but living as those who are only but pilgrims. It is not necessary to stop working or achieving things, or building structures, or setting up things for the future, just because we do not know when all these things may end. The only thing that is important is that even as we live our lives, and do the necessary things of life, we must always live as sons of God. It does not matter if the time should meet us in the farmland or in the school or in the workplace. What matters is that always and everywhere, may we be found, having our hearts always ready for God by living according to the details of our faith and vocation as Christians.
As the prophet Malachi tells us in the first reading (Mal 3:19-20), in everything we do, let us do them in the name of God. Let the fear of God which is the fear to live without God, always inspire us to embrace righteousness. If we go on living ourselves as authentic children of God, then we do not need to fear neither persecution nor the end of time because we are always found worthy of the person whose name we bear, CHRIST.
May Christ help us, to be worried more about our relationship with him and our readiness to go down for the sake of his name, rather than living and calculating when the time of our death shall be so as to begin then to prepare ourselves to meeting God.
Fr.Chukwuezugo Nnamah