The Living Word

As we near the end of the liturgical year, our gospel readings seem a bit scary…fire and brimstone stuff – wars and insurrections, famines and plagues, temples being destroyed, and Christians being persecuted, spurned by their families and friends, and ultimately put to death.  Where’s the love?

Often I prefer to set these readings aside, to compartmentalize them as written in a far distant time to a much different set of people in a much different culture.  I read them as apt descriptions of what was going on in first century Palestine, but of much less relevance to me living in twenty-first century America.  But this “historical” look at Scripture is a spiritually dangerous path to tread, for Scripture is the living word of God, as relevant to our salvation today as it was to the apostles living and eating with Jesus.

Today, we hear the disciples marveling at the magnificence of the Jerusalem Temple, but Jesus admonishes them that, in time, there will not be one stone atop another.  (Lk 21:5-6)  Most scholars agree that Luke wrote this gospel about 85 or 90 AD, when the memory of the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was still fresh in many people’s minds.  Thus, it was likely that these words of Jesus were remembered as an accurate prediction of this tragedy.  Temple destroyed, prophecy fulfilled, end of story.

But it’s not the end.  Jesus was saying much more.  Jesus warns his first disicples – and us – that whenever we place our faith in anything on earth, a material thing or a purely human institution, that faith must crumble, as all things on earth ultimately do.  It may take some time, but all earthly things must come to an end.  Their journey must end in death.

Jesus goes on to say how his followers will be called before the governors and kings, forced to witness to their faith, and some will die for his name.  (Lk 21:12-19)  Again, I recall the early martyrs of the church, many of whom, like Paul and Ignatius of Antioch, were called before Caesar himself to testify and to die.  That was then, but certainly not so in our more enlightened time.

Yet, it seems that more and more often, right here in America, we are being called up before governors and, if not kings, congressmen and Presidents, called up to testify to the faith that we share, the values we hold and the principles by which we live.  Respecting the rights of others to not believe what we believe, to not hold our same values or live by our same principles, even accepting that these beliefs and values and principles may put us in a distinct minority, we must, as the early martyrs did, persevere in asserting our right – and even more importantly, our duty – to hold firm to our faith, to live our values, and to be guided by our principles.

We persevere in our living witness even if we find it hard to come up with the words for our defense, for Jesus himself stands with us today and the Spirit will give us the words we need.

And Jesus ends by promising that by persevering we will secure our lives.  By persevering, we will live forever and ever, with Him and all the saints in the kingdom of God.