World Upended

It is a feeling we all have experienced at one time or another. The phone rings, and a loved one calls with heavy news. A routine doctor visit turns into an unexpected and alarming diagnosis. A letter arrives in the mail that makes the future seem less certain. We all know that feeling of something coming out of the blue that upends our world, that puts into question something which had seemed solid and secure.

For the last several weeks, our Gospel passages have followed Jesus as he has made his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. This sequence is more than a physical journey; it’s intended also to be a spiritual one. Jesus, the Son of God, is making his way to the city of God, Jerusalem, and there he will fulfill the purpose for which he came into the world: to redeem humanity by his suffering, death, and resurrection. All of Luke’s Gospel has been building toward this point – to the moment of the Lord’s arrival into the city where God will at last deal with sin and death.

In today’s Gospel, we have finally arrived at the journey’s destination. Jesus is speaking to his disciples from inside Jerusalem, in fact from within the Temple, the most important place on earth for a Jewish person. It was literally the dwelling place of God and a symbol of the covenant he had with his chosen people Israel. And yet, as we hear, Jesus predicts its downfall. In each of the four Gospels, Jesus explicitly prophesies that the Temple, this center of Jewish life and religion, will be destroyed. It’s hard to overstate how devastating and disorienting a prediction that was. For a faithful Jew, the Temple was the spiritual, cultural, and political center of the world. For it to be destroyed, for it to be wiped from the face of the earth, was to put into question everything that had seemed solid and secure.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem" by James Tissot (c. 1890)

Of course, the disciples, very understandably, want to know more about more about the specifics of his prediction of the Temple’s destruction. When is it going to happen? How should they know to be ready for it? We sometimes ask similar questions of God – not about the Temple’s destruction but about how we are to navigate the natural course of our lives now, the ups and downs that can come unexpectedly, the surprises that occur which can so often be disorienting and devastating. How do we find stability in an ever-changing world?

Jesus gives us two recommendations in the Gospel. He doesn’t answer the disciples’ question about timing directly, because timing is something outside of our control. Instead, he speaks about what we can control. First, he warns us not to be deceived. When our world is upended in some way, it’s tempting to search for easy answers. Jesus instead encourages us to be shrewd and not to put our trust in those who seek to lead us astray. This might be quite literally persons: false prophets and fake messiahs, those who promise us religious salvation, political security, some special knowledge that is attractive when we are struggling. As Jesus says, “Do not follow them!” More broadly, it means also resisting the temptation to panic and then seek comfort in ways that only further disorient and discourage us. What we need instead is to turn to the Lord, to trust in him more fully, and to believe in what he has promised. 

The second recommendation Jesus gives begins from that point: do not be terrified. It is certain that we will encounter trial and suffering, especially if we are trying to live faithfully Jesus’s teachings. Our world is out of sync with God’s plan, and so there’s always going to be a fundamental disconnect between the world and us until the end of time. If the Lord himself came into the world to do battle with the forces of darkness and to eventually suffer and die, then we should not expect that as his followers we are going to avoid sharing in that same fundamental struggle. But despite our suffering, Jesus tells us not to fear. Why? Because he is somehow with us, within us, strengthening us, empowering us when we need his presence most. After the struggle is the victory; after suffering is the Resurrection. When we place ourselves in the Lord’s hands, and allow him to direct us where he will, then while we might suffer we can never truly be afraid, for we know that he is stronger than all else. We must continue on our paths confidently, faithfully, believing that the Lord who controls all sees our perseverance and will secure us in his love.

Friends, we are just a few weeks away from the season of Advent and the start of a new liturgical year. The Church invites us in these weeks to consider the course of history, broadly and specifically as it applies to our own lives. Sometimes it takes difficult news, or an unexpected diagnosis, or an uncertain future to remind us that in the end we are not made to be at home in this life. In this ever-changing world, even those things that seem safe and secure will inevitably be upended and overturned – if not now, then in some time to come. The only true and lasting stability to be found is in the One who is greater than those things, in the One who is all-powerful and everlasting. In what way is the Lord inviting you today to not be deceived, to not be terrified, but to trust in him more deeply and so navigate this world toward the life to come? 

As we prepare for this Eucharist, may our communion with the Lord in this Sacrament of the Altar always be our true and lasting foundation.