Tuesday of Week 34 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Luke 21:5-11

The Temple at Jerusalem in Jesus’ time was a magnificent building and one of the wonders of the world. As the Gospel tells us, it had been more than 40 years in the building and was not yet completed. People were commenting to Jesus on the beautiful decorations of jewels and votive offerings. His hearers must have been shocked, if not utterly sceptical, when Jesus told them that, in time, the building would be utterly destroyed with “not one stone…left upon another”. In our not too distant past, who would ever have dreamt that the New York City World Trade Center, that temple to capitalism, would be reduced to rubble in a just matter of minutes—and how much more the Temple of God?

They asked Jesus:

Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?

Jesus’ answer is directed more to the end of time than to the actual destruction of the Temple, which occurred about 40 years later in the year 70 AD. In fact, one event blends into the other. To many who were witnesses to its destruction, it must have seemed like the end of their world. What kind of life could they live without their Temple, without the dwelling place of their God? How could Yahweh allow such a thing to happen? It left a huge empty space in their lives which nothing else could fill.

Jesus’ warning is that his followers should not misread the signs or be too alarmed. It seems the early Christians were expecting Jesus to return for his Second Coming within their lifetime. This must have led to many false alarms—people claiming to be the returned Lord, or warning that the end of all things was close at hand. Even the destruction of the Temple (remember many of the Christians were converted Jews) must have looked like the beginning of the end. St Augustine had similar feelings as Rome, the heart of Christendom, fell in ruins to the ‘barbarians’ (the ancestors of many of us!). The end of Rome seemed to him like the end of the world.

Jesus tells his followers not to be too ready to believe what they hear people saying. Nor are they to be too alarmed when they hear of wars and social upheavals. There will be many natural disasters, widespread diseases and celestial phenomena. These do not necessarily spell the end. The message now being given is:

…the end will not follow immediately.

At every pivotal time in the history of our planet, there are people who claim to see the end in sight. The coming of the third millennium was no exception. So far they have all been wrong. The attitude of Christians is not to be one of fear and anxiety. It sees the new era as a time of challenge and opportunity, a time for new beginnings.

On a more personal and much more realistic level, we may be anxious about the signs of our own time of departure from this world. But again, it does not help to become fearful and anxious. Rather, we should work to live each day to the fullest and to make it productive for ourselves and others.

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Tuesday of Week 34 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Revelation 14:14-19

Today’s passage, whose meaning at first sight seems puzzling, is a vision of gathering together the righteous and the good, followed by judgement on the wicked. The actual destruction of the wicked pagans will be treated more fully later on (Rev 19:11-21), but it is not part of our liturgical readings. Our reading today is inspired by a short passage from the prophet Joel (3:13) based on the grain and grape harvests:

Put in the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Go in, tread,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for their wickedness is great.

As we shall see, the grain represents the good and the wine the bad.

In his vision, John sees:

…a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, with a golden crown on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand!

The “Son of Man” refers to Christ, and the cloud indicates a divine presence—God’s throne. The “golden crown” represents a golden wreath of victory, his victory over death and sin.

The “sharp sickle” refers to that used by the Israelites for cutting grain (usually a flint or iron blade attached to a curved handle of wood or bone). The sickle is the tool for harvesting and Christ as Judge comes to reap his harvest, gathering in, first of all, the elect—those who have been faithful to his Word.

Says a second angel:

Use your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.

In other words, it is the time for the final judgement and the gathering in of the righteous. So, the “Son of Man” wields his sickle over the earth and brings in his harvest.

In the second part of the reading, we see another angel, also with a sharp sickle, coming out from the “temple in heaven”—the place where God has his dwelling. That angel “has authority over fire”. In Jewish tradition, various angels were responsible for particular aspects of the world, including wind, water and the bottomless pit. Here, fire is closely associated with the idea of judgement. Fire both destroys the bad and purifies the good.

The angel of fire “came out from the altar” where the prayers of the persecuted and martyred are carried up to God. Now judgement comes on those who made them suffer.

The angel then calls out to the One, saying:

Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe. So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and he threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.

The context suggests (in contrast to the harvesting sickle mentioned earlier) the smaller grape-knife with which the farmer cut the clusters of grapes from the vine. According to the NIV Study Bible, the traditional wine press was:

“…a rock-hewn trough about eight feet square with a channel leading to a lower and smaller trough. Grapes were thrown into the upper vat and trampled with bare feet. The juice was collected in the lower vat. At times mechanical pressure was added.”

The treading of the grapes was a common symbol in the Old Testament for the carrying out of God’s judgement. In Isaiah, there is a vivid image of God treading the wine press of judgement:

I have trodden the winepress alone,
and from the peoples no one was with me;
I trod them in my anger
and trampled them in my wrath;
their juice spattered on my garments,
and I stained all my robes. (Isa 63:3)

And so, today’s reading speaks of the “winepress of the wrath of God”.

Our reading concludes at this point, but there is one more verse in the full text of the chapter:

And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for a distance of about one thousand six hundred stadia.
(Rev 14:20)

The pagans are to be destroyed well outside of Jerusalem because bloodshed would defile the city. Jesus too was executed and shed his blood outside of Jerusalem (Heb 13:12-13). His execution in this manner showed that Jesus and the New Covenant had been rejected and, in his dying, he identified himself with the sinner whom he came to reconcile with God.

The theme of the final judgement is one that goes right through our readings as we approach the end of the liturgical year. It is a time for reflection on where we stand before God and before each other.

These reminders are not meant to frighten us, but to help us to prepare and, above all, to be ready at all times. For our judgement is as close as the day of our death, which can come up on us like a “thief in the night”. Every day we read of people whose lives have come to a totally unexpected end. But if we are always ready, there is nothing to fear.

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