(Homily
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr. C)
As we draw near to the end of the
liturgical year, the Church brings to our consideration the question of the end.
The imagery used in the readings of today is that of the “end of the world”
predicated upon the present and the future, but it is not to be understood as
in the end of the world as such, even though the readings especially the first
reading and the Gospel speak about the end of the world, but the imagery of the
“end of the world” symbolically points to the end of the world of sin,
injustice, suffering and hatred. The two
categories prevalent in the liturgy of the Word of this Sunday are the present
and the future. It is in the hope of these two temporal processes that the
existence of the human person revolves and tends. For this in the first reading
Prophet Malachi foresees the Day of Yahweh when the “arrogant and evildoers”
will be uprooted and burned up. In the Gospel passage St. Luke maintained that
the tribulations and trials of the present time ought not to perturb us,
because through our perseverance in faith we will receive the future salvation.
With the same consciousness of time and eternity St. Paul invites the
Thessalonians to imitate him in his dedication to work here on earth in order
to receive in the world to come the imperishable crown. However, both Paul and
Luke lay emphasis on the working out of a Christian presence in the world.
However, when we look at the happenings and
events in our world today from the surface, apparently it does appear evil
forces prevail over good, and the workers of iniquity dominate over the good
and honest people. Thus, for the wicked they seem to have won for everything
seem to work for their good. But the situation instead perturbs the believers,
and they question: how come God permits that the just be always disadvantaged?
Is there no time when justice will finally be done? Those were the questions
that the believers in Israel were posing during the time after their liberation
from Egypt. It was a period of crisis, of delusion, because even the promises
of the prophets appeared to have failed. It was a time of discouragement and
consequently of religious infidelity, manifested in moral disorder and apostasy.
As such, they were asking: “Where is the God of fair judgment now?” (Mal.2:17). Behold, they made a fatal
conclusion thus: “It is useless to serve God; what is the good of keeping his
commands…? (Mal.3:14). That is equal
to saying that believing in God is of no need. This is the background of the
episode of the first reading.
In the first reading (Mal.3:19-20) tries to respond and react to the many provocations
and interrogations of the people. His was indeed an endeavor to restore their
hope. He opines: “For look, the Day is coming, glowing like a furnace. All the
proud and all the evil-doers will be the stubble, and the Day, when it comes,
will set them ablaze, says Yahweh Sabaoth, leaving them neither root nor
branch” (v.19). The Day that the prophet
is referring to here is the Day of Yahweh, the day of divine judgment. The
inevitable divine judgment will be like fire that purifies and discriminates;
it reduces to ashes the waste and makes precious metals to shine. Be that as it
may, the divine judgment while it will
be an inevitable condemnation for the wicked, will be a thing of joy and hope
for the true believers, for in the words of prophet Malachi, “But for you
who fear my name, the Sun of justice will rise with healing in his rays, and
you will come out leaping like calves from the stall” (v.20). Indeed, the Sun of
justice is Jesus, the promised Messiah. Little wonder, St. Luke puts in the
mouth of Zachariah the father of John the Baptist: “the rising Sun has come
from on high to visit us” (Lk. 1:78).
Jesus is already the Judge of the world, he draws a discriminating line between
the good and bad, between the wicked and the lovers of God’s name: he who
listens to his words and put it into practice is the wise man who builds his
house on the rock; and who does not put it into practice is the foolish man
that builds on sand (cf. Lk.7:46-49);
who is not with Him is against Him, and he who does not gather with Him,
scatters (cf. Mt.12:30). Jesus is
already a sign of contradiction: of salvation for the true believers and
condemnation for those who do not believe.
Indeed, the passage of this first reading
strikes two important points, one that will be dominant for the next two
Sundays: the last judgment, and the other: the coming of Christ in his
Nativity, which will dominate the latter Sundays of Advent. And the
responsorial psalm stressed the eschatological dimension of his coming, for he
comes to judge the earth, he will judge the world in righteousness.
According to the Gospel passage (Lk.21:5-19) the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 d. C. was prophesized by Jesus himself. And it could be considered a prefiguration of
the end of the world, of the final judgment and the glorious manifestation of
Christ. Here we see the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus, even though it was
pronounced more than 2,000 years ago, but
it seems to give us in different dimensions a realistic picture of what is
happening today in our world. Today there is a proliferation of false
prophets, wars, revolutions, nations fighting against nations, earthquake,
plagues, famines, persecutions, betrayals and even martyrdom. To those who were
talking to him about the magnificence of the temple, of its beautiful stones
and votive offerings, Jesus responded to them: “All these things you are
staring at now – the time will come when not a single stone will be left on
another; everything will be destroyed” (v.6).
This prophecy will be realized few years later, exactly in 70 d. C. Afterwards,
the interlocutors posed him two questions: “Master, when will this happen,
then, and what sign will there be that it is about to take place?” (v.7).
Jesus
did not respond to their questions, rather he shifted the discourse to the end
of the world and the glorious coming of his Kingdom. Even on this, he did not
give precisions as regards neither time nor signs of the nearness of the end.
Probably, because to know with precision the time and signs of the end will not
be of help to man, rather it may be an obstacle, for man would have continued to
live the way he likes until when the end approaches then he will begin to make
amends. But man has to live essentially
in uncertainty, which requires continuous readiness. However, drawing from
the Gospel passage, the end of the world and the glorious coming of Jesus will
surely take place, but they were not announced by Jesus with imminence, for
Jesus said that things and events will take place first, “but the end will not
come at once” (v.9). Rather Jesus
made two important remarks:
●First, Jesus
foretold his disciples of all that will happen, even within a short time, and
then throughout the course of history. Jesus pre-announced “Take care not to be
deceived, because many will come using my name” (v.8), they are false prophets and they will deceive you saying
that “The time is near at hand” (v.8).
He warned them to be careful because it is not true, they are false prophets
and liars. Again, “And when you hear of wars and revolutions” (v.9), “Nations will fight against
nations” (v.10), Jesus continued that they are not sign of
the imminent end of the world, they
do not pre-announce the end of time, instead they are inescapable facts of the
corrupt nature of man. “There will be great earthquakes and plagues and
famine” (v.11). Not even these are
the signs of the end of the world, instead they are caducity and vanity of the
precarious nature of this cosmos, indeed, in the words of St. Paul, “the whole
creation, until this time, has been groaning in labour pains” (Rm.8:22), with the hope of being
liberated from corruption (cf. Rm. 8:21).
At last, Jesus foretold his disciples: “But before all this happens, you will
be seized and persecuted…for the sake of my name; you will be betrayed even by
parents and brothers, relations and friends; and some of you will be put to
death; you will be hated universally on account of my name” (vv. 12.16-17). Equally, these persecutions and sufferings are not
signs of the imminent end, they are normal and inevitable situations in every
time, because the mentality and criterion of judgment of a Christian cannot but
collide and be opposed to those of the world. Therefore, we could say that
Jesus rapidly presented to his disciples the normal situation of every epoch,
what his disciples in every epoch would have confronted, the trials that surround the intermediary time, that is the time
between the coming of Christ on earth, the inauguration of the Kingdom of God
and his glorious coming at the end of time, the definitive realization of his Kingdom.
●Second, He instructed and gave them indications on
how to comport themselves. What is more important to Jesus is how the
disciples have to comport themselves. His disciples and Christians of every
epoch: –Should not allow themselves to
be deceived by false prophets, those who say that they are the Messiah and
that the end is near. He gave them
strict order: “do not follow them” (v.8c),
do not listen to them, else they will lead you astray. –Should “not be terrified” in the face of wars, revolutions, and cosmic
catastrophes, they should not allow themselves to be taken by panic or
anguish, be serene and face the situation with self-mastery. –Should give witness of their faith: the
persecutions, threats and even sacrifice of live are occasions for the
Christian to express his love for Christ and to put all his trust in Him. And Jesus promised: “I myself shall
give you eloquence and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to
resist or contradict” (v.15), and
“not a hair of your head will be lost” (v.18).
–Should persevere in their faith, and be
constant in their fidelity to the Gospel and in the coherency of their
life, for “your perseverance will win you your lives” (v.19).
From the foregoing, Jesus wants us not to live in inertia, in idleness and in alienation
from the concrete existential problems of life with the thoughts of the end of
the world and the hereafter. Rather, he wants us to be inspired the more at
the imitation of the values of the Gospel and insert them where ever we are. However,
it is important to note that Jesus with his apocalyptic discourse was not
intending to give a precise time for the end of the world or to indicate the
prevalent signs as his listeners wanted him to do (v.7). He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem (v.6), and this will mark the end of an
epoch in the salvation history, such that the old people of God (the people of
Israel) will be succeeded by the new people of God (the Church). The discourse
of Jesus was directed to Christians of every time, including us, with the
objective of teaching us how we have to live and comport ourselves in the
various situations in which invariable we will find ourselves. We therefore, need to appropriate the
devotional advice to always live as though each day may be your last; for
time and tide wait for no one. It is on this point that the message of the
Gospel dovetails into that of the second reading.
In the second reading (2 Th.3:7-12) St. Paul reproaches the Christian community of Thessalonica because of
the problem of idleness, inertia and parasitism, as consequences of the thought
and mentality that all will end soon and Christ will come gloriously. On
the contrary, today we run the opposite risk, of not being committed in the
Christian sense, because we do not even think about the end of the world and
the judgment of God. Some are tempted to believe that everything ends in this
world. Little wonder, they tend to amass wealth, without the vision of the
hereafter. St. Paul uses himself and the other apostles as example, and thus
invites them to imitate them in their hard work and dexterity, and not to
wallow in idleness.
The message that runs through the readings
of this Sunday is somewhat a reminder to
us that we should not be bothered much about the end of the world, rather we
should always be ready for the end of our individual journey here on earth.
It is a reminder that no matter how evil and evil-doers thrive, goodness will
always triumph. Therefore, it is against the above backdrop that St. Paul
warned the Thessalonians not to be carried away by the worries of the imminent
end of the world, rather they should imitate the apostles and be filled with
the sense of urgency in preparing for the end of our individual sojourn on
earth and as we prepare let us not entertain any form of distraction or
desperation! For Jesus will win and goodness will triumph over evil, let us
therefore, take to heart the words of Jesus in today’s gospel: “By your
perseverance you will secure your lives” (Lk.
21:19).
(Fr.
Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)
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