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 Some scripture scholars spend a lifetime sorting out the various strands of the gospels concerning the second coming of Jesus and the end of time.  What they work with are the scriptures that contain "apocalyptic" descriptions of events. The scriptures for this last week of the liturgical year in "Year I" feature the Book of Daniel and the preaching of Jesus in Jerusalem about the destruction of the temple and his second coming.  

     The Book of Daniel was written as a way of encouraging the faith of the Jewish people who were under persecution in the time of the Maccabees and the Greek-oriented rulers in Israel in the century just before Jesus' came on the scene!  The Gospel According to Luke was probably put into writing after the destruction of the temple and while the Christian community was under persecution.  For many Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity, the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem seemed like the end of the world had come.  Both the Book of Daniel and the Gospel According to Luke were written to encourage believers to have confidence that the "kingdom of God" would triumph over any other kingdom (notice the four different ones in the king's dream in Daniel).  Already, in Luke's time, there were people who claimed to be messianic figures who would lead that kingdom.  This has continued to happen throughout history when things got chaotic politically and socially.

     Luke the evangelist would show in the Acts of the Apostles that the "kingdom" would continue through the missionary efforts of the apostles and others like St. Paul and the preachers he mentions.  The fact that we can read these scriptures today tells us that we cannot rely on human events as predictions of Jesus' second coming.  The Roman empire collapsed and other similar political and social structures that seemed permanent have come to an end, but God's kingdom remains.  We have Daniel and Luke's assurance of this.  AMEN