NOTES for Luk 21:29-33

What does Jesus mean when He asks us to keep watch? He is hardly asking us not to sleep. Yet often in our lives it happens that we are, as it were, asleep while awake. We may act energetically, work a great deal, and even have fun, but we notice little of the events taking place around us or the people living beside us. Keeping watch probably means being attentive to the world and to the people created by God. By watching and praying, we learn to receive this whole world and everything that happens to us, even what does not seem joyful to us, as a gift from God, and to recognize Christ in every person we meet.

Small children live this way; for them, important and unimportant events do not seem to exist. Every event is important and significant and brings many emotions and experiences. Of course, the ability to distinguish what is essential from what is secondary is important, including for a Christian, but we must try not to lose the ability to see what is secondary, because it is sometimes precisely through it that the Lord addresses us.

We are used to thinking that heaven and earth, this whole world, the whole universe, are something real, something one can see and show to others, something that obviously exists. But words are ephemeral: they sounded and are gone, flew out and flew away. "Words, words, words..."

But Jesus, as always, turns everything upside down. The word, when it proceeds from God or from the God-man, is not ephemeral. It is more real than any material reality, because it was precisely by the word that this world was brought into being. The world was created and therefore is not eternal; it has a beginning and an end. But God's word is not created, but begotten by the eternal God. It has an eternal nature, does not disappear, and does not remain fruitless.

So for us, who belong to the created world, still not to pass away together with it but to enter eternal life, we need to seek God's word, listen to it, accept it, and be permeated by it, becoming like Christ, the Word Incarnate.

The Kingdom of God is near, but Christ Himself said that it comes unnoticed and is already partly among us. This means that we should not identify the coming apocalyptic disasters with the Second Coming and the Last Judgment. After warning the disciples about the fearsome events that will accompany the Second Coming, Christ called them to keep watch and pray in the hope of escaping all these things that are to come. They will be the consequence of human actions, but Christ does not desire disasters for people. He does not wish anyone to perish, and the essence of His coming into the world is not found in cataclysms. On the contrary, the signs of His coming are compared to the tenderness of leaves and the blossoming of unfolding branches.

We are given a warning to be ready for the day He foretold. Therefore, let us note that He warns us not against some especially terrible crimes, but against what is natural and everyday: drunkenness, gluttony, and—most astonishingly—the cares of life. But how can we manage without them? Yet it is not the sea but a puddle that drowns us, and even the most normal and necessary concerns will do us no good if they obscure Christ from us.

It is hard to grasp the full meaning of what Christ says. We are used to thinking that heaven and earth, this whole world, the whole universe, are something real and solid, something that can be seen, studied, and shown to others. In other words, we are used to thinking that the world exists independently of anything else and unshakably. That is why the name of God, "the One Who Is," becomes such a revelation for us. Words, in our view, are the opposite: ephemeral. They sound, and then they are gone; they fly out, and fly away. "Words, words, words..."

But Jesus turns these familiar ideas of ours upside down. The word, when it proceeds from God or from the God-Man, is not ephemeral. It is more real than any material reality, because it was by the word that this world was brought into being. The world is created, and therefore it is not eternal; it has a beginning and an end. But God's word is not created. It is begotten by the eternal God, has an eternal nature, does not disappear, and does not remain barren.

Therefore, for us who belong to the created world not to pass away with it, but to enter eternal life, we must seek God's word, listen closely to it, receive it, and let ourselves be permeated by it, becoming like Christ, the Word Incarnate.

Against the backdrop of the terrible events of the apocalypse, when "people will faint from fear," amid wars and darkness, Christ's words sound paradoxical and astonishing: "...Then straighten up and raise your heads, because your deliverance is drawing near." This is precisely the dimension that has always been lost in all kinds of final predictions about the end of the world. People expected nothing good from it, and in any case they did not expect from it a meeting with Christ. Yet this is a relevant question, and not by accident these words are addressed to everyone: "this generation will not pass away until all is fulfilled." However the history of the earth as a whole unfolds, each of us has ahead of us our own personal end of the world, when history will continue its course without us. And here the most important thing is to remember that meeting God is joy and deliverance, including deliverance from fear.

In today's passage the Lord tells His disciples that in the future their life may change very sharply. Now everything is familiar to them: there is Jerusalem, there is the Temple, their beloved Teacher is near, and nothing is required of them except to follow Him. But Christ reveals to them that He Himself is going to His death, that the Temple will be destroyed, Jerusalem laid waste, and the disciples will face persecution, hatred, and betrayal.

To one degree or another, these words apply to each of us. The Lord calls us to keep watch, because we do not know when the ground will give way beneath our feet, when a time of testing will come. And here He gives us very important commandments about how to stand, how to survive, and how to win in this battle of good and evil. First, "do not be afraid and do not be terrified" - the Lord will not abandon His disciples. He will give them words for witness and wisdom that the world will not be able to withstand. The disciples are threatened with persecution and death, yet paradoxically "not a hair of your head will perish." Even the sufferings to come will be filled with meaning and will contribute to Christ's victory. Second, "by your endurance save your souls" - in trials they will need steadfastness. Third, "lift up your heads; your redemption is drawing near" - victory will inevitably belong to Christ, and therefore the final trials will be permeated for them with the joy of that victory. And finally, "keep watch; watch yourselves" - so that at the necessary moment they will not be unready and helpless, will not give in to panic, and will meet the coming Lord with a joyful heart.

Jesus' prophecy about the destruction of the city and the Temple, sometimes called the Little Apocalypse, causes bewilderment among many. This bewilderment first arose in the second generation of Christians, some of whom lived to the year 70 and saw with their own eyes the devastation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple of which the Saviour speaks. This was because what Jesus had predicted happened, while He Himself still did not return. Another revelation, given to the apostle John, was needed before the meaning of the new era became clearer. Jesus Himself, meanwhile, seems not to have gone into detail when speaking about the end times and His return in glory. He mentions only the principal events: the end of the former age and the coming of the Kingdom in all its fullness.

The revelation received by John completed the picture: it portrays an entire age, the age of the advancing Kingdom, which the Saviour does not mention at all in His prophecy. This is understandable, however: He was telling the disciples about the coming events when history had not yet ended, when the Temple was still standing in its place. In Jesus' words, it is precisely the end of the Second Temple that becomes the end of times.

This might seem strange: almost two thousand years have passed since the year 70, yet history apparently continues. But from the standpoint of the processes that began with Christ's coming into the world, the former history really did end with the end of the Second Temple. All subsequent events belong to another age, one wholly defined by the moment of its completion and therefore by the Saviour's return and the manifestation of the Kingdom to the world in all its fullness. This is precisely why, immediately after describing the devastation of Jerusalem and the Temple, Jesus turns to the subject of His return and the triumph of the Kingdom. He says nothing about the transitional age itself. This is why those who remembered this conversation formed the impression that Jesus would return immediately, or almost immediately, after these events.

The revelation received by John after the year 70 put everything in its place: it became clear that an entire age was meant, the age of the advancing Kingdom in which we too have had to live. Yet it can already be regarded as the home stretch leading us to the goal. The main thing is to reach it.