“When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
It would be crass, I feel, to continue drawing contemporary political points out of the readings that we are presented with this week, suffice to say that it is interesting that the Scriptures, in spite of being laid down in a somewhat arbitrary reading pattern for us, seem to speak across time and context like nothing else.
“these things’ could well mean the fall of Jerusalem, it could well also mean the fall of known society, the breakdown of life as we know it, the persecution of the faithful, and lots else besides. Following from our previous discussions this week, the key point for me is that we are, whatever we are going through, to “lift up our heads” and set our faces towards the Lord. it’s hard to trust God. It’s a bit of a nebulous thing to do. How do we know when we are trusting Him and not trusting ourselves or something else? In the end, I think it is for us to look to our coming King. As we’re told that people will “faint from terror” in the days of violence and uncertainty to come, the only hope we can have is in Jesus.
With every day that goes by, our redemption is drawing nearer. Let’s be people who point to Jesus, to the truth of the Gospel, work for peace. Let’s not be people desperately seeking to justify violence, hatred and injustice on the basis of a skewed picture of scriptural “truth”.