And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved

 Then 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." 

- Matthew 24:1-14

Yesterday we read the end of Jesus' final sermon, which is a summary of His critiques of the scribes and Pharisees.  Our reading also included Jesus' lament over Jerusalem for what was to come.  He said:  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.  Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.'  Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.  Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt.  Serpents, brood of vipers!  How can you escape the condemnation of hell?  Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes:  some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.  Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  See!  Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!'"

 Then 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."  Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of the temple was fulfilled in AD 70.  This was on the occasion of the Siege of Jerusalem, when the temple -- despite orders to the contrary -- was destroyed by the Romans.

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?"   My study bible comments on the verses that follow (through verse 31) that the Scriptures describe the end times in various ways; these are so varied as to make it impossible to create a precise chronology.  (See Daniel 7-12; Mark 13; Luke 21; 1 Corinthians 15:51-55; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10, and the Book of Revelation.)   But Christ's emphasis is rather on watchfulness, and the practice of  virtue, not on constructing timetables of what hasn't happened yet.  My study bible paraphrases Matthew's account of the end as encompassing (1) the initial sorrows (today's reading, verses 4-14), (2) the great tribulation (verses 15-28), and (3) the coming of the Son of Man (verses 29-31).  It notes, importantly for us, that the period of the great tribulation includes the entire Christian era, and not simply the final years before Christ's return.

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."  A note stresses here that it is the warnings against deception which are given particular emphasis in Matthew's account.  In particular, the warnings against following a false Christ are given great importance, as Jesus repeats the warning in verses 11 and 23-27.

"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."  My study bible says that the wars referred to here are first and foremost that which involved the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, but also most certainly include subsequent wars.  It notes that wars are not a sign of the imminent end, but rather of the opposite:  that the end is not yet (see 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3).   Let us note what follows, a series of calamities for the world and especially for people:  famines, pestilences, earthquakes, which are the beginning of sorrows.  These disasters are coupled with hatred and persecution and even murder of those who follow Christ around the world, followed by offenses, betrayals, and hatred for one another.  All of this gives rise to false prophets and their deception of many.   And as lawlessness will abound in such circumstances, the love of many will grow cold.   But the ones who are saved are those who can endure in faith, to the end through all things.

"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."  My study bible comments that all these calamities and all this opposition cannot stop the spread of the gospel.  Indeed, it notes, persecutions against the Church frequently increase the number of souls being converted.  It cites St. John Chrysostom, who marvels that while the Romans subdued countless Jews in a political uprising, they couldn't prevail over twelve Jews who were unarmed with anything except the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What must we take from today's reading?  Quite simply, Jesus is preparing us for what is to come.  Over the past 2,000 years since these words were said, not only has the destruction of the temple and the city come to pass (it would happen roughly forty years later), but also the wars and rumors of wars, as well as the famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places.  Persecutions and tribulation for Christians has arisen throughout history and persists today around the world in both hatred and murder.  Moreover, among Christians themselves we have experienced at times offenses, betrayals, and hatreds -- and yes, false prophets as well, who have successfully deceived many.  Some of us today would say that we are, indeed, witnesses to an abounding lawlessness (most clearly in a spiritual sense), as well as to love between people -- even a social sense of brotherly love, the fabric of a society -- growing cold, including families falling apart (see also, concerning this respect, 10:34-39).  In the times which quite closely followed Christ's lifetime on the earth, and up to the present time today, Jesus' prophecies have all come true:  in this "time of the end" that includes all of the present Christian era, we are witness to what He has described.  And yet, we also remain witness to the fact that these are but the beginnings of sorrows; we have not yet reached the end.  We remain in a time of endurance, in which what He teaches us and those things for which He has prepared us continue to evolve and manifest themselves.  In the end, there is one word that He insists we must keep in mind, and that is to endure.   Jesus says, "He who endures to the end will be saved," and we are to take Him at His word.  All that means is that He has previewed what is to transpire during this time as we await His return, and we can quite literally see it all around us for ourselves.  What He has told us has come to pass; we witness it every day.  But there is one thing that persists through it all:  His love for us, and our return of and faith in that love.  It is in His love that we must endure through all things, even to the end.  The apostles and disciples to whom He directly speaks in today's reading would witness simply horrific and unthinkable things.  We can't imagine the beauties of this great temple in which Jesus' conversation takes place, as it was rebuilt by Herod the Great (also known as Herod the Builder), refurbished to be known as one of the great wonders of the world.  How could they comprehend it could be destroyed, and their city burned?  A lot of history has passed since then, and many empires, and yet still today we can find ourselves standing in the "shoes" (or possibly sandals) of the disciples.  We may witness shocking and horrific things, even experiencing a common love grown cold.  But Christ's love endures, as must we, just as He endured in faith to the end.  Let us remember His words to each of us, and know that our job, also, is to bear our cross as did He, and to endure undeceived.