Christ's mysterious words about the end of the world and His second coming have mattered in every age. People have always been torn between a sense that the end is near and the warning that no one knows the time. But it appears that words one writer once said about death also apply to the end of the world: it is not only in the future; it is already at work in the world.

That is why the Gospel prophecies can be addressed to every person, whatever age he lives in. They contain not only a prediction of the final horrors; they are filled with confidence that Jesus will not abandon this world on the threshold of its ruin: "I will be with you, I will give you a word for bearing witness to the faith... fear nothing; not a hair of your head will fall in vain..." So these are words not only about the world's last days, but also about the final, ultimate faithfulness of Jesus to His disciples.

The coming of the Kingdom and the day of Judgment that precedes it Jesus, even during His earthly ministry, more than once compared with the harvest, with the gathering of a crop already ripe and waiting for the reapers and gatherers. And in the parables He told, the image of the vineyard was always associated with the people of God. And now, in his apocalyptic vision, John sees the day of Judgment and the coming of the Kingdom precisely as a day of harvest (vv. 15-16). This harvest, as is evident, brings earthly history to its end: the day of Judgment has come, the time has come for that separation of wheat from weeds about which the Savior spoke in His parable (Matt 13:24-30). And for the "vineyard," for the people of God, and therefore for the earthly Church, the harvest, or more precisely the gathering of grapes, becomes the day of God's wrath, which is not surprising if we recall the judgments Jesus gives to the churches dwelling on earth, to which He addresses Himself through His apostle (vv. 18-20).

Of course, the stream of blood flowing from the winepress produces a terrifying impression. But if we think carefully about the picture revealed to John, it is not hard to see that before us is precisely the situation of the end of history, when Judgment begins not because God has grown tired of waiting or has no more time, but because, as is evident, there is nothing more to wait for: humanity as a whole and each person who was destined to walk the earth in particular have made their choice, and now only the summing up remains. Those who have chosen the Kingdom shed their blood as martyrs; those who have chosen the existing order of things shed it because the world, according to the Savior's witness, "lies in evil." In a world corrupted by sin, a person does not get to choose whether to shed his blood or not; he can only choose in whose name or for the sake of what he will shed it. And for the earthly Church, for everyone connected with it even in the smallest degree, perhaps only in words, this choice becomes especially responsible: for it depends on this choice whether the one choosing will acquire the Kingdom or lose it.

The combined Gospel reading read today includes three passages from chapter 21 of the Gospel of Luke, in which the Lord speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem. On the one hand, Christ's predictions were fulfilled in full in AD 70, when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed by the Romans. On the other hand, in the reality around us in any age we see the fulfillment of what the Lord says: nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there are earthquakes and famine and other terrible events.

All this does not allow His prophecy to be referred only to the events of the year 70. One way or another, the death and destruction of which the Lord speaks are an image of the fate of the world that does not accept Christ.

In connection with this, it is important for us to notice that the hope of salvation is given to us by the Lord precisely in this terrifying prospect. Knowing everything that is happening and revealing it to the disciples, He says: by your endurance save your souls. Christ calls us not to be afraid, but to place our hope in God precisely amid the catastrophes of which we are witnesses.