Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - Tuesday in the 34th Week in Ordinary Time
[Dan 2:31-45 and Luke 21:5-11]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......"
If someone had predicted early in 2001 that on September 11th that year the world trade towers in New York City would be reduced to rubble, we would probably have dismissed such talk. Yet, those impressive buildings did come down and we can watch it all on film. Anything made by humans can be destroyed by humans. The temple in Jerusalem was an impressive building, but by the time the Gospel of Luke was put into writing, it had been destroyed by the Romans. In many ways this was the "end of the world" for those who lived in Jerusalem at the time of the ill-fated rebellion, 67-70 A.D.. St. Luke has Jesus predicting this event in his preaching just before his passion. Just as the loss of the temple was not the sign of the end of time, neither will the loss of Jesus be the end of his mission! [cf. Luke 24:13-35] Persecutions and other trials would come, but the true sign of the end of time will not be in natural or human-made disasters but his return in glory. Until that time, the Holy Spirit would be God's commitment to humanity and especially to the new mission of preaching the gospel.
Efforts to predict the time and place of the Second Coming are "big business" for those who write books and give talks about it! It puzzles me because Jesus himself says that we are not to know this. [cf Mark 13:32-33] Our job is to live in readiness for it. In the meantime, all material things, including temples, are to be used for God's glory. AMEN