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"Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Therefore if they say to you, 'Look, He is in the desert!' do not go out; or 'Look, He is in the inner rooms!' do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
- Matthew 24:15-31
Right now in our readings, Jesus is in Jerusalem, and it is Holy Week. He has made His Triumphal Entry, He has cleansed the temple, and been quizzed by various groups of the religious leadership. Jesus has made His grand critique of the Pharisees (see the readings from Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week). On Saturday, we read that Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?" And Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come."
"Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), "then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath." My study bible says here: "Daniel's prophecy of the abomination of desolation was fulfilled in A.D. 70, when the Roman general Titus, before ordering the temple burned, entered the Most Holy Place, thus defiling the temple. Jesus quotes this prophecy so that the disciples might know these things will happen while most of them are still alive. Whoever reads, let him understand are code words from the author to early Christians about the known meaning of what is written."
"For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened. Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. Therefore if they say to you, 'Look, He is in the desert!' do not go out; or 'Look, He is in the inner rooms!' do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together." My study bible asks the question here, "How will the Christ come back?" Jesus moves from discussion of the destruction to come to Jerusalem to a discussion of His Second Coming. My study bible suggests, "The event will be unmistakably visible to all." It notes that in the Church (for many denominations) prayer is in the direction of the rising sun, "because the East symbolizes Christ Himself who is the East of easts, Light of light. The great day of the Lord will be illuminated by the true Light, the 'rising' (Is. 60:1, 3; Mal. 4:2; Luke 1:78; 2 Peter 1:19). The very creation will be transfigured -- not destroyed but superseded -- by the light of His presence at the end of the age."
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." My study bible says that Jesus teaches here about His own Second Coming, not for the disciples' sakes only, but "for all of us who come after them. The sign of the Son of Man in His Second Coming is thought by many to be His glorious Cross, the memorial of His Passion. His power and great glory will be brighter than the sun, which will be darkened. The Lord Jesus will come from heaven in the same way the Apostles saw Him ascend to heaven (Acts 1:11)."
Throughout the times of the Church, people have been concerned with Jesus' Second Coming. It seems that at many times in Church history, people have expected an imminent return, looking for signs and perhaps devising chronologies. But what we can understand from Jesus' teaching here is twofold: there is a certainty about His return, a promise that this will come, and at the same time an uncertainty: we don't know when that will happen, and He has been careful to tell us (in tomorrow's reading) that He doesn't know when that will happen. There is another great certainty in this description, and that is that when it does happen it will be something all of us will be aware of; nobody is going to miss this. That's a warning to all of us that anybody who promises a secret hidden knowledge is deceiving. And there we come to our present time, because truly we are living in a time of uncertainty. The disciples Jesus is speaking to were living in a time of the great Roman Empire, when all kinds of changes were taking place in the world. Jesus warns the disciples clearly and vividly in this reading about what is to come in Jerusalem, and in great detail warns of the tribulation they are to endure. They are not to be fooled in that time of tremendous uncertainty. Today, the world seems to be in a state of instability, heightened by a sense of the swiftness of events that can happen and affect many places on the globe simultaneously. One can study the phenomenon of world markets for various products and our interconnectivity from continent to continent via modern communications to understand how financial markets may be impacted globally within a single day's news cycle and observe the modern world's innovations that heighten the impact of uncertainty. World economies are interconnected; what happens in one country has an even more devastating impact on other countries, particularly shifts in the larger, more stable economies (such as a change in interest rates) have huge impacts on smaller and weaker economies. This is simply one aspect of our modern lives, and it does affect all of us. Changes in corporate structure affect the ways we think of job security and livelihoods. Moreover, in today's world, populations seem to be on the move more than ever before in history, as a greater percentage of immigrants make up the populations of countries all around the world -- and as weapons create warfare, not in the grand vision of empire, but in skirmishes for power and control which seem to be destabilizing many regions simultaneously. All of these things add up to a sense of a world in which things happen at a very rapid pace, and instantaneous communication, transportation, innovation and new technologies mean that change is extraordinary. The days seem to get shorter, indeed! All of this is to say that when there is a greater sense of instability, we tend to look toward this Second Coming, and even God's hand in the ways that time seems to be shortened. We dwell in this "time of the end" when we await Christ's return. But we really need to remember that we've been deliberately given no time-table for this event, and we've also been told that it will be unmistakeable. No, we are in the time when the wheat and the tares grow side by side, when we know what we are to be about as His disciples, a time when our confidence must be in our faith. The Teacher has set it all out very clearly for us. As we read the next few readings, Jesus will make it very clear how He expects us to conduct ourselves in this period of waiting for that Sun to rise in the East of easts. For today, let us consider the survival of the Church at that time of its infancy, and His teachings throughout Matthew's Gospel about the state of our hearts, and the ways we nurture our faith in all events and times.
