A Pulitzer Prize winning photo from the Vietnam War captures a Vietnamese general just before he puts a bullet to the head of a suspected Viet Cong official on a Saigon street. That picture gave added impetus to the growing antiwar sentiment at home. Any religion that tries to scare and force the folk into faith is just as ugly, senseless and shortsighted. Faith established under duress will not, in itself, bring long term spiritual depth. The passage that we have been directed to examine this Sunday, November 17, is again in the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 21, verses 5- 19. Some have called this passage the doomsday scenario.
The premise of this supposed biblical theology is that God will, at some point in time, demand and instigate the complete destruction and annihilation of all things. The exception, of course, is that this God will exempt the good guys who will be preserved for eternity. These folk insist that this passage is one of the best biblical proofs for their doomsday scenario and that they, surprisingly, are the good guys. It is so accepted as dogma within a certain sector of the Christian church that reputable scholarship is afraid to even consider publicly that these words from Jesus were not so intended.
The doomsday folk accentuate the frightful conditions listed in this passage, wars and uprisings, earthquakes, famines, pestilence and eclipses in the sky. These recurring events are, indeed, frightening but they have constantly nagged our days. The doomsday message for this world is not what Jesus is giving to his disciples. The prophecy is about the end of religion, all religions, beginning with the Jewish religion as then practiced. The temple is doomed. This central focus of the Jewish religion will be flatted in the year 70 A.D, some thirty years after the crucifixion of Jesus.
Going forward, who or what is to replace the temple? The God of the galaxies was about to destroy the religion of the men of Israel and that through Jesus he would restore the ancient simple faith of the fathers, Abraham, Issac and Jacob. There are times in scripture when I would like to advise the authors, in this case St. Luke, “quit beating around the bush” and just say it! Maybe it is humility or a writing style that avoids the first person at all costs, but why can’t Jesus just say in Matrix language “I am the one”. In this passage we are left to assume as much but the assumption has been grounded in all that has gone before in this gospel.
Without wasting time on the obvious, for the time is short, in a matter of hours religion would orchestrate a plan to rid their world of this Jesus and seemingly succeed. The God of the galaxies, however, has a better, bigger plan for Jesus who will return to earth again one grand day. This passage again assumes we know this expectation for all the words of Jesus are about having life patience into the future. Don’t believe every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along to say, “I am he”, this my return will take time. Time aplenty for persecutions, imprisonment, political trials, betrayals, hatred and death, all of which have been and continue to be the history of the faith.
So what will the return of Jesus look like, how will it change our world? The answer is not in this passage of scripture. The doomsday folk must "prove" it elsewhere in scripture, if they can. In the short term, blowing it up may seem justified but ultimate control is not ours, thank the Lord! The ultimate decision remains with the God of the galaxies and one might ask, who does the Bible say he is, how is he portrayed every Sunday morning to we folk who desperately need a Savior? What event should we expect?
Where in scripture is the dark side of God?
G.Goslaw
Landers, CA
