Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 28, 2017 - Tuesday in the 34th Week in Ordinary Time
[Dan 2:31-45 and Luke 21:5-11]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." Then they asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?" [Luke]
The timing and the setting for Jesus' Second Coming have been a matter of speculation for Christians from the very beginnings of the church. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple certainly seemed to many at the time as the beginning of the end, but it was not to be so. The early community only gradually came to the realization that Jesus' return, while a matter of faith, could not be predicted with scientific certainty. Many of the "signs" that are favored by the kind of writing called 'apocalyptic' seem to occur with regularity! There are always seem to be wars and strange weather and space phenomena. Jesus, in today's passage from the Gospel According to Luke, warns against any human efforts to predict his return. This warning has been regularly ignored in the course of history with a 100% rate of failure!
I have heard it said that we all live within a "tick and a tock," but even those words speak to clock time which can be measured. By the time the latest documents of the New Testament were put into writing, the Christian community had begun to realize that life must go on until Jesus' return, and that we cannot be lazy about it simply because the timing of that return is uncertain. The parables about the wise and foolish bridesmaids and the fearful servant who buries his master's money are examples of the importance of daily commitment. God's time is not clock time. We have to wake up each morning, give thanks for life, live as Jesus teaches and leave the second coming to him. AMEN