Luke 21:5-19 (NRSV)Luke 21:5-19 is part of the apocalyptic discourse we find in 21:5-36, dealing with the fate of Jerusalem.
Luke 21:5-7 is a pronouncement story concerning the destruction of the temple. The source is Mark 13:1-2. Luke has gathered a group of apocalyptic sayings from Q in 17:22-37, and now he includes a group of apocalyptic says from Mark 13:1-37. These complexes in Luke and his sources purport to preserve the revelations Jesus gave his disciples about the future. In fact, Luke 21: 5-24 come from Mark and will deal with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. In these few verses, Jesus describes the coming destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.
These teachings arise out of an ongoing dialogue with chief priests, scribes, elders (20:1), Sadducees (20:27) and disciples (20:45), and follow a series of questions about Jesus' authority (20:1-8), paying taxes to Caesar (20:20-26), the resurrection (20:27-40), and just how the Messiah can be David's descendant if David calls him "Lord" (20:41-44). Then, an observation about the value of a poor widow's offering draws the reader's attention to the Jerusalem temple, setting the stage for this passage.
5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God(votive offerings and objects worshipers dedicated to God, which then became a part of the permanent temple decorations. Some of these were quite elegant and expensive, like the so-called "golden vine" Herod himself is supposed to have given to decorate this place of worship.) Jesus overhears people talking about the beauty of the temple. The disciples were not the only ones impressed with the stature and structure of the temple. The ancient world considered both Jerusalem and the temple in its heart to be magnificent. Dazzling white stone, intricate carvings, gold adornments, all made the temple building and its various courts a "wonder" to all, especially country bumpkin‑types like most of Jesus' disciples. The temple was an amazing piece of architecture. At the time of Jesus' ministry, it had been under construction for almost 50 years and was finally nearing completion. Josephus, the Jewish historian noted that its exterior lacked nothing that could astound the viewer. Massive gold plates covered the sides. The sun immediately radiated a fiery flash from which one needed to avert the eyes. First sight of it, one could mistake it for a snow-clad mountain, for the part of the temple not covered with gold was pure white. Some of the largest stones were 40 feet long, 12 feet high, 18 feet wide and bright white in their appearance. This was more than a temple in which to worship God; it was an incredible accomplishment of human beings. However, such drooling on the doorsteps of the temple does not impress Jesus.
He said, uttering a prophetic pronouncement concerning the destruction of the temple, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” An astute observer of the times in Israel could see that the continued conflict between Jew and Roman would lead to some major disaster. Although shocking, this prophecy is a logical continuation of Jesus' activities in Mark 11:12‑21, with the sign of the fig tree and the prophetic cleansing of the temple, and his "subversive" teachings delivered while at the temple itself (Mark 11:27‑12:44). The saying illustrates Jesus’ insight into the religious and political condition of the day. Jesus stands in the line of prophets. Marveling at the size and glory of the temple as it bustled with Passover crowds; the horrifying prophecy of Jesus must have stunned the disciples. It left no room for negotiation. Still, his response must have struck his listeners as shockingly disrespectful and patently false. Despite its beauty, its elegance, and the dutiful homage it evoked, the future of the temple is utter destruction. We see the same emphasis in the source unique to Luke in which Jesus weeps for the city of Jerusalem because the days will come when its enemies crush the city to the ground, not leaving one stone upon another. The reason Jesus gives for this destruction is that they did not see the visitation of God had come to them (Luke 19:44). In 70 AD, the Roman army destroyed the temple first by fire. After the flames died down, Titus then ordered the stones themselves torn down, leaving nothing standing. Not surprisingly, this terse bombshell elicits a panicky response from Jesus' disciples. 7 They asked him, “Teacher, when, not if, will this be, and what will be the sign of the day of the Lord that this is about to take place?” The focus of the questions on when and the sign move the dialogue into an inner-circle eschatological discourse. They do not doubt the prophetic utterance of Jesus, but only question how much time they have left. The first "lesson" Jesus presents his disciple-listeners deals with the physical destruction of the temple. Herod expanded the grounds of the Temple. He added lavish embellishments and decorations to the site.
The philosopher, Ernest Becker, spoke of our myriad of “immortality ideologies.” All products of human creativity, all art and imagination, culture, architecture, institutions, nations, all are in service of our desire somehow to escape the biblical word, “You are dust, and to the dust you shall return.” True, my life shall end and I will disappear as something inconsequential, but I can pass on what I have to my children and grandchildren, I can endow a chair at the university, I can build a great stone building, and, in a sense, live forever. Becker believed that because we know that we are mortal, we imbue our institutions with immortality. I may die, but my college, my denomination, my club, my nation will last forever. There is a reason that we build our government buildings to look like temples, to appear to be a thousand years older than they really are, for we plan for them to be here a thousand years after us. Therefore, we get into step behind the flag, winning basketball teams, the school crest on my blazer. Jesus, look at these great institutions!
Jesus says all of this is a lie. It all melts down, disintegrates, turns to dust. We might find it easier to say, with Jesus, that the destruction of the temple will come. After all, it was in 70 AD. It might be harder for us to consider the possibility that our political party, our nation, our denomination, will have an end.
Luke 21:8-11 is a saying concerning signs before the end. The source is Mark. Jesus' reply is a caution against the constant temptation to look for signs. In response to the disciples' request for more facts, Jesus gives them a discourse that combines informational data with inspirational ideals of how the faithful should interpret these signs of the end. We find common apocalyptic expectation. The text now begins laminating Christian eschatological expectations onto the Jewish traditions. Jesus cautions his followers that, before the large-scale day-of-the-Lord catastrophes, they will encounter disasters on a very personal scale. Nevertheless, as we learn in verses 12-19, the disciples are to use the circumstances advantageously, as their “opportunity to testify. Persecutions thus lead to possibilities.
The disciples are curious about how they will know that the temple is about to be destroyed. Jesus’ answer describes many different situations. First, he predicts false messiahs to whom the disciples should not respond. 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.ˆ Jesus warns his disciples that many false yet attractive voices, declaring that the eschaton has come and now is the time for action. Jesus cautions his disciples against allowing others to lure them into premature action. Though it is true that the "time is near," the time has not yet come. Instead of giving them a definite time, Jesus describes a series of telltale events. One impending sign will be the proliferation of false leaders. Their success will indicate, "The time is near." Josephus tells the story of another Jesus who gave dire warnings to the city just before its fall. Josephus refers to many false prophets around 70 AD. Note what Josephus says about the events that led up to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
"These people owed their demise to a phony prophet. He was someone who on that very day announced that God had ordered the people in the city to go up to the temple area, there to welcome the signs that they would be delivered. Many prophets at the time were incited by tyrannical leaders to persuade people to wait for help from God. ... When humans suffer, they are readily persuaded; but when the con artist depicts release from potential affliction, those suffering give themselves up entirely to hope."[1]
Second, in verses 9-11, still in response to the disciples' question, Jesus continues to describe other events signaling the rapid approach of this judgment day. Jesus gives the disciples reasons to face the coming tribulations with confidence and details to make them tremble. Events that will be precursors to the end times are genuinely harrowing. 9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified. Regardless of how intimidating such political upheaval will be, Jesus urges them to keep their sense of terror, anxiety, and fear at bay. For these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Jesus counsels courage when experiencing such horrifying events, for even these are only portents of even more extensively violent rampages. Paralyzing fear is both premature (the end will not follow these events immediately) and reveals a mistrust of God's providence and purpose ("these things must take place first"). 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom (Isaiah 19:2). Kings, peoples, potentates, and tribes will be at war and ravage Greece.[2] “They” will make war against each other, people against people and kingdom against kingdom.[3] The point is that as they have in the past, wars and conflicts will continue to occur. However, the simple unfolding of human history is a story controlled and timed by God. In and of themselves, these events are simply part of God's gradual, unfolding plan for human history ‑‑ they are not the looked‑for, eschatological, end times. Further, using Jewish images, Jesus reiterates his caution, now expanding the ravages from human tumults into natural disasters, 11 there will be great earthquakes (Judges 5:4f; Psalm 18:7f; Isaiah 24:19 ), and in various places famines (Jeremiah 15:2; Ezekiel 5:17) and plagues. People who do not die in war will die in earthquakes, those who escape that will die in fire, and those who escape that will die in famine.[4] There was a famine in the time of Claudius, earthquakes at Laodicea in 61 AD and Pompey in 62. Jesus cautions his disciples not to let events in the natural world receive the false label as portents of an imminent eschaton. God has used such events before in human history. God will use them again. Amid them all, there is no need for fear. Further, there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
Luke has in mind the end of Jerusalem, not world. The warning is to not allow startling political events to come to mislead them. People who claim messiahship and that the destruction of the temple is soon should not mislead them. Though false prophets and wars are part of God's plan for the end, it does not mean the end is coming soon.
Jesus' words make the future clear. The disciples should expect genuine suffering and hardship. The difficulties and disasters of the world will become difficulties and disasters through which they must pass. Faithful disciples will face many dangers. However, they should never doubt that these events are unfolding according to divine plan and in keeping with God's time.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of the apocalyptic mentality that shaped early Christianity, and it is impossible to understand such passages as this without a grasp of the role of apocalyptic religious thinking in the lives of those who articulated the earliest Christian message.
The apocalyptic milieu in which Christianity arose, along with a variety of other messianic sects, such as the Zealots and the Essenes, was one development of the prophetic tradition of dissent that figured so prominently in the history and religion of ancient Israel. As the repeated protests of religious apostasy and social injustice lodged by such prophets as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah and Jeremiah were met with regular indifference or outright opposition, the stance of protest gradually hardened into one of despair at mundane reform, and prophetic attention increasingly became focused on divine intervention from outside the earthly sphere.
The writers of apocalyptic imagery used to express this refocused attention did not invent it new, of course, but drew extensively from the tradition of divine appearances — theophanies — rooted in the most ancient layer of Israel’s religious tradition. Pre-eminent among the theophanies preserved in the Hebrew Bible was the appearance of Yahweh on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, which accompanied the giving of the divine law. Apocalyptic material draws from that tradition much of its language and imagery.
We have a message given in the temple marking the climax of the public ministry of Jesus. Here is the climax of the pronouncement that begins at 21:8, commonly referred to by scholars as the Synoptic Apocalypse (Mark 13:5-37; Matthew 24:4-36). Luke's version of this eschatological discourse gives Jesus' message a uniquely Lukan spin. While neither gospel writer sugarcoats the catastrophic events that will befall both the chosen people of God (the destruction of the Jewish temple) and Jesus' loyal followers (the public and personal persecutions of Christians), Luke highlights these catastrophes as opportunities. For individuals this is a chance to let faith shine and witness to the rest of the world. These dramatic developments also serve a second purpose: to display divine sovereignty, intention, power and presence in the unfurling future.
There was a cartoon which a radio preacher at a microphone speaking, and his assistant was in the background at a desk. The first frame had the preacher saying, "Yes, the signs of the times definitely point to the end of the world tonight ...” The next frame shows the preacher gone, and the assistant saying: "... If you'd like a tape of today's message, simply write to Box 499 ..."[5]
Many Christians have a keen interest in this future. I find nothing new when people talk about the Parousia, the end of time, and Christ's return. In the year 1000, apocalyptic dreamers watched the skies for the apocalypse. The entire Middle Ages witnessed intense millenarian movements. Followers of Joachim of Fiore even resorted to self-flagellation, blaming themselves for Christ's failure to return on schedule. In the 1500s, Martin Luther thought the world was in its final days. William Miller, a Vermont pastor with thousands of followers, calculated that the world would end in 1843. J. F. Walvoord's 1974 book, Armageddon, Oil, and the Middle East Crisis, was a million seller (even its updated and reissued 1990 edition). Hal Lindsey's Late Great Plant Earth was a multimillion seller through the 1970s and early 1980s.
It would help in such matters that the question of when certain things will happen is on a need-to-know basis. We do not need to know. We do need to keep bearing the fruit of discipleship.
Most of us today are quite willing to discuss God and spirituality as long as we limit the discussion to an internal quest for the meaning of our lives. This discourse of Jesus is a reminder that Christianity has a hope for the redemption of creation and human history. Like the Gospels, many New Testament writings, and the New Testament itself, theology tends to put eschatology, as a discussion of the doctrine of last things, as its last chapter. Yet, in another sense, good theology shows that its eschatology accompanies it along the way to the end. Without the hope contained in the concluding chapter, much of what Christianity says about creation, Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, and Christian life, will make little sense. Eschatology attempts to keep chronos, time that passes by the clock and calendar, and kairos, the right and fulfilled time, in juxtaposition. It attempts a dimension of realism regarding the calendar. It attempts to sustain the expectation that, despite the incomprehensible nature of the direction of the present, the secret is that God is moving history toward its saving and grace-filled consummation. Such an orientation toward the future helps to see realistically the fallibility of the church, for it is not a finished product today. Christ finished his work on the cross and resurrection. The participation of the church in that work has not finished. The church is a community on the way to its completion. The same is true of our lives.[6]
Passages such as this sound strange to us. Yet, for all that, Christian faith means to everyone who embraces it, the church cannot continue to permit, much less endorse, a subjective captivity of the gospel. Not even the community of faith is adequate as the arena of Christ's saving work. The whole creation stands at the window eagerly awaiting the arrival of the day of redemption for the children of God. Further, such passages remind us that human effort will not bring us to the desired end. It rests upon the assumption that human history will not be a genuine story unless we think in terms of ultimate ends. A proper estimation of eschatology will help the church avoid the danger of always adjusting the church to the needs and anxieties of the culture.
Apocalyptic elements in the Bible can become fads in the hands of some theologians and preachers. I think of the Anabaptists of the 1530s in Munster, Germany, the Millerites of the early 1840s, the early 1970s publication of The Late Great Planet Earth, and the Left Behind books and movies. Such language also gained attention in the secular world with the turn of the millennium. A thorough study of such movements would be a long book. Harold Camping studied the Bible and concluded the world would end May 21, 2011. He placed his message on 5,000 billboards. He estimated 7 billion people would die. He used millions of dollars to convey his message. When the date came and went, he amended the date to October 21. By then, the fad had subsided. In our time, we are naturally and justly skeptical of such language. A well know story from colonial New England says that during an eclipse panicked several state legislators. They moved to adjourn, thinking the end of the world must be near. However, one of them said, "Mr. Speaker, if it is not the end of the world and we adjourn, we shall appear to be fools. If it is the end of the world, I should choose to be found doing my duty. I move you, sir, that candles be brought."[7]
At the same time, if you pray the Lord’s Prayer regularly, you are praying apocalyptically: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. If you recite the Creed, you are affirming your connection to the apocalyptic hope of the early Christians: “And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. … And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” When we ask God to interfere with our affairs on this world, we are asking for an end to the world, as we know it. When the author walks on the stage, the play is over. The world as we know it, says apocalyptic hope, will melt away like a dream and something else that never entered our heads to conceive arrives, something so beautiful to some and terrible to others.[8]
I see another dimension of such language in the Bible. People are ready for apocalyptic speech when they are desperate. Do we really want such earth-shaking occurring among us? Would such an expectation be a threat or promise to us? Our lives stretch between the times. Many people have good reason look at their lives with a sense of enjoyment and satisfaction. They are at peace with the world. Apocalyptic expectation in the Bible challenge present arrangements of society and look forward to something more and better. For those who experience this world as painful and tragic, the shaking of heaven and earth would be welcome. In fact, we need to take to heart the notion that Christianity is completely and restlessly eschatological.[9] One sign of the church adjusting its message to its contemporary setting too much is the loss of its apocalyptic speech and therefore its eschatological dimension. Regardless of our current setting, we need to know that the future of humanity and a concern for its destiny is not so much a matter of how or when, but a matter of who. Thus, bad things happen in this world, but do not despair. God has not given up on us. We must not give up on God or ourselves. The future is not in the hands of beastly powers. The future belongs to the Human One. The future has the human face of Jesus Christ, the one who died for us so that we might find life.
Since many people seeking to be faithful to the witness of the early church have misused eschatology, I am not sure what to do with eschatology. We also have the counter scientific evidence that we are moving toward nothingness. The hope contained in eschatology for a world in which evil and suffering laid aside while peace and justice are taken out of the hands of human beings and accomplished by the work of God was important to Jesus and to the early church. Eschatology tells us that history does not end in a whimper but in redemption. Standing there in glory at the conclusion of all things is Jesus, the one in whom God has turned toward the world and each of us in love and grace. I modestly hope that Jesus and the early church are right. We are moving toward creation and history glorifying God. My expectation is that God as revealed to us in Jesus will not bring this end into existence through coercion and force, but rather, will find ways to lure human minds and hearts and the institutions they create toward an increasingly just and peaceful world.
Luke 21:12-19 contains sayings concerning persecution of the disciples. It is from Mark 13:9-13. Most scholars today think of the passage as one in which the church at Rome compiled this text to strengthen Christians. As we shall see, these sayings reflect detailed knowledge of events that took place after Jesus’ death. They refer to the trials and persecutions of Jesus’ followers, the call to preach the gospel to all nations, advice to offer spontaneous testimony, and the prediction that families would turn against one another are features of later Christian existence. They do not refer to events in Galilee or Jerusalem during Jesus’ lifetime.[10]
This uncalculated but lengthy stretch of time between the disciples' hard experiences of persecution and the falling of the final eschatological curtain is the focus of Jesus' words in verses 12-19. Before the destruction of the Temple occurs, there will be persecutions. The reason for the persecutions will be Jesus' name. They will come from Jewish, Gentile, and even family sources. Jesus will give testimony through them. We can relate the counsel on endurance with 8:15.
In verses 12-13, persecution & testimony, having its source in Mark. 12 “But before all this occurs, Luke highlighting the temporal order of end-time events, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over, as the authorities wanted to do to Jesus in Luke 20:19, to religious leaders and thus to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before political leaders and thus to kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify.[11] Once authorities have incarcerated the disciples, they will enjoy the right to speak out in their own defense.
In verses 14-15, Spirit under trial, is from Mark and Q. 14 So make up your minds (literally "place in your hearts," a precise Semitic term in Lukan Septuagint language) not to prepare your defense in advance. It describes the careful preparation and meditation necessary before giving a legal defense. This kind of painstaking preparation Jesus cautions incarcerated disciples not to attempt. 15 For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.[12] Instead of offering advice on how his disciples might minimize their sufferings, he simply insists they are not to worry about or plan for their responses in these situations. Expect and wait for words to come to them from Jesus himself at the crucial moment - words that will utterly confound the evil intentions of their persecutors. Jesus will fill his followers' mouths with the right and necessary words. It is surprising that Luke's gospel, which generally does much to focus on the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, clearly notes that in this instance Jesus personally, not the Spirit, will provide vocabulary and testimony for his persecuted beloved. The stress is upon the possibilities of witness that persecution will present.
In verses 16-19, fate of the disciples. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends. The people you love the most will hurt you the most. Such a statement is a piece of wisdom and a warning. We need to prepare ourselves for this. Disciples will also suffer abuse at the hands of loved ones. Undoubtedly the promise of Jesus' personal guidance and presence is most comforting, especially to those who will suffer trial and abuse, not from the synagogue or from the government, but from their own families and friends. And they will put some of you to death. Luke's rendition of these personal attacks and betrayals takes Mark's words and puts their verb form into the up-close-and-personal second person. Luke makes the relationship between the betrayed and the betrayer unmistakably personal by referring all the connectedness back through this second person "you."
There was a reason early Christians did some things:
• left secret signs (the fish) to mark safe places to worship or seek a night's refuge;
• wrote secret messages (in the languages of their hymns and liturgies) to communicate with other Christians.
It was a dangerous world in which to be a Christian. The political winds of tolerance and intolerance blew hot and cold depending upon the whims of the emperor, the mood of the regional rulers, the fanaticism of local synagogue officials or the tempers of the marketplace crowds. But the greatest threats to the small, struggling Christian communities were internal. Insiders were the ones who often turned in the early Christians who suffered martyrdom. The informers gave names of Christians to the officials. To make matters worse, these "informers" also coldly recommended what kinds of tests political authorities could give to see whether someone was really a Christian. Insider-informers knew that a true Christian would 1) never curse Christ, 2) never pray to Roman gods, and 3) never offer wine and incense to the emperor's statue. If any accused Christian willingly participated in all three of these, he/she was set free.
17 You will be hated by all because of my name. The prediction of such future betrayals is certainly more distressing to the disciples than the threats from organized religious and political institutions. Jesus' prediction is shocking. It suggests to his followers that from now on, even when they gather into the very hearts of their families, they are never safe from argument, attack and abuse. 18 But, in a proverb or saying from common lore taken from Q at Luke 12:7, not a hair of your head will perish.[13] We can see a reflection of the special touch of Luke in this proverb. By reiterating this protective promise, Luke softens the harshness of the prediction of persecution that precedes it. Such a saying stresses the security of the disciples. They have no reason to doubt the providential care of God. The Father has intimate and detailed care for humanity. Thus, each disciple is an end that serves the providential care of God for the world as well. Yet, the way in which God has the good of individual creatures in view, namely, with regard for the divine care of all other creatures, is different from what the creatures themselves seek as their good.[14]
[1] Jewish Wars, 6.285-87
[2] Sibyline Oracle iii 635
King will lay hold of king and take away territory.
Peoples will ravage peoples, and potentates, tribes.
All leaders will flee to another land.
The land will have a change of men and foreign rule
Will ravage all Greece and drain off …
[3] IV Ezra xiii 31 (ca 100AD)
And they shall plan to make war against one another, city against city, place against place, people against people, and kingdom against kingdom.
[4] II (Apocalypse) of Baruch. 27:7, 70:3,8,
In the sixth part: earthquakes and terrors.
And they will hate one another and provoke one another to fight. And the despised will rule over the honorable, and the unworthy will raise themselves over the illustrious. … And it will happen that everyone who saves himself from the war will die in an earthquake, and he who saves himself from the earthquake will be burned by fire, ad he who saves himself from the fire will perish by famine.
[5] (Leadership, Winter 1985).
[6] - Douglas John Hall, Confessing the Faith, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996, pp. 49, 476.
[7] Lamar Williams Jr., Mark, (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1983) p. 242.
[8] C. S. Lewis, Sunbeams: A Book of Quotations, ed by Sy Safranksy (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1990, p. 80.
[9] Karl Barth, Romans, p.
[10] The Jesus Seminar
[11] In verses 12-13, persecution & testimony, Luke expands what he found in Mark to conform to what he writes in Acts. Most scholars do not think Jesus could have said this.
[12] In verses 14-15, Luke revises what he found in Mark to conform to the speeches of Peter and Paul in Acts. Most scholars do not think Jesus could have said this.
[13] Verse 18 is a proverb taken from Q, found in Luke 12:7, which most scholars think Jesus said.
[14] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 53-4.
[15] In verses 16-19, which most scholars do not think Jesus could have said.
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