NOTES for Luk 21:5-38

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.

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.

What Jesus says in this passage cannot fail to horrify His listeners. Terrible pictures of persecutions, deaths, and diseases that humanity will have to endure are supplied with such details that there is no room to doubt that what stands before us is not a figurative parable, but a description of reality. And therefore Christ gives us comforting words that help us overcome paralyzing fear: "I will give you a mouth and wisdom."

The Lord calls us to the impossible. On the one hand, He invites us to remember every minute that at any moment everything we build on earth can collapse. But at the same time He opens before us the road of complete trust in God, the path of confidence that every hair on our head has been counted by Him. And the path of Christian life runs between these seemingly opposite positions in life.

In today's Gospel reading, the Lord speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem. On the one hand, Christ's predictions were fully realized in AD 70, when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed by the Romans. On the other hand, in every age we see in the world around us the fulfillment of what the Lord describes: nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there are earthquakes, famines, and other terrifying events. All this prevents us from limiting His prophecy to the events of the year 70. One way or another, the ruin and destruction of which the Lord speaks are an image of the fate of a world that does not accept Christ. In this connection, it is important for us to notice that the Lord gives us the hope of salvation precisely within this terrifying prospect. Knowing everything that is to happen and revealing it to His disciples, He says: “By your endurance you will gain your souls.” Christ calls us not to fear, but to put our trust in God in the very midst of the catastrophes we witness.

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.

Speaking about the end times and about His second coming, the Lord directs the apostles' attention, and therefore ours as well, mainly not to natural catastrophes, and not even to wars, but to what will happen personally to us. The Lord says that He will come a second time to each of us personally, Himself, and at the same time to all, to the Church. And before this, catastrophes will not simply happen in the world in general; we will be persecuted. Personally, each of us may be persecuted, and each will thereby bear witness to Christ.

We often say that Christ has already become incarnate and has already come to earth, forgetting that we are those who wait: we await His second coming, which will transform us and this world. Even when we see the horrors now taking place in the world, we can see in them signs of the Lord's approach and not fear suffering, but sing: "Come, Lord," Maranatha!

The Lord says that those who confess His teaching will face hard trials. Christians will have hands laid on them, they will be brought to trial in the synagogue, thrown into prisons, persecuted... From an ordinary everyday point of view, this means Jesus' complete failure as a preacher. If His followers are facing such trials, is there any point in believing Him?

The answer the Savior gives does not fit within the framework of familiar logic, because Christ thinks on the scale of eternity. His words, "...this will be your opportunity to bear witness," mean that in these difficult situations His followers will be able to bear full witness to Him. For God Himself took humiliation and pain upon Himself not in order to abolish them, but in order to sanctify them. Many holy martyrs in the history of the Church revealed the light of Christ in their sufferings and in this way became His true witnesses.

When we face danger, we want to hide and run away, but these words of the Gospel call us to the exact opposite: despite our smallness and helplessness, to carry Christ in this suffering.

There is hardly a Christian on earth who has not thought about witness, either his own witness or witness in general. And persecutions for the faith are also familiar to many. It would seem that there is nothing unusual in this: history knows many martyrs for an idea who were persecuted for refusing to renounce their convictions. It can seem that Christians are no exception here: they were persecuted for their religious convictions just like many others. But is this really so?

At first glance, there really are no fundamental differences. Except, however, for one thing: Jesus, as is evident, commanded each faithful person not to think about what he would say when he had to answer before his persecutors. And this can seem truly strange: after all, the matter concerns the most important thing, the confession of one's faith, and here, as it can seem, the Savior calls us to let everything take its own course!

But it turns out that the matter is completely different: Jesus simply calls us in a critical situation to give Him the opportunity to act. He Himself will speak through us, and all that remains for us is not to hinder Him. Not to hinder Him with our fears, our self-confidence, or our self-admiration. And then He will say through us everything that must be said, but that we could never have said without His help.

Before His Passion, the Lord tells His disciples about the destinies of the world. This conversation is usually called the prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives. In it, the Lord also speaks to the disciples about their own path: these are the words we read in today's passage from Luke's Gospel. Christ's words are both difficult and frightening, for He speaks of the way of the Cross that His disciples will be called to follow. The Lord promises His disciples that the fallen world will rise against them as it rose against Him, and that even those closest to them may become their opponents. At the same time, however, He promises them something supremely important: His help. His disciples will be persecuted for Christ's name, and in this they will find blessedness, because the Lord Himself will be with them.

This prophecy of Christ was fulfilled in the very first century of the Church's history and continues to be fulfilled. His promise that He will give His disciples words and wisdom that cannot be contradicted is fulfilled no less precisely. Countless Church Fathers, theologians and preachers in every age bear witness to Jesus, not by ‘following cleverly devised fables’, but by contemplating and proclaiming the truth through the Holy Spirit. Christ's words thus concern the essence, the true content, of life and history. Each of us can test ourselves against these words. If the world resists you, it means you are moving towards heaven. But if the fading waves of tranquillity close over your head like treacle, it means you are sinking into external, superficial things.

This phrase was spoken by Jesus as part of His prophecy about coming disasters and persecutions, and it is precisely in this context that it should be considered. Moreover, the point is not the patience of any people in any difficult situations, but specifically Christians during persecutions. This does not mean that we should look with Olympian calm at injustices or violence happening next to us; Jesus Himself intervened in such cases, and rather promptly.

But when persecutions are being "unfolded" against us, then He calls us not to be impatient. He grounds this in trust that God holds our life in His hands, and therefore we can refrain from rushing our own reaction and allow Him to act.

Someone said that in a critical situation we have two options: reaction and response. Reaction is what arises immediately; it comes from ourselves, "from the flesh." Response is where we have stopped our first reaction, endured it, and allowed God, who never acts without our permission, to enter into action. It is no accident that in the preceding phrases Jesus says that we should not prepare or train our reaction in advance, but should trust that God Himself will give His answer. When by such patience we stop ourselves, God enters our life, and He accomplishes our salvation.

We so want to know exactly when the events indicated will take place, and for two thousand years people have been puzzling over the dates of coming catastrophes, even though the Lord clearly warned us not to do this. In speculation about times and dates there is a substitution, when our attention is diverted from how we live before the end comes to the search for the date of the end. And yet what follows from His words is that it is far more important to be ready at every moment, which means that at every moment we should live worthily before the face of the Lord.

Among the hardest sayings of Christ in the Gospel are those in which He reveals that the time He indicates is near. But twenty centuries have passed, and the world still lies in evil. Was He speaking about the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and not about a global judgment at all?

There is reason to say that He was indeed prophesying about events of the coming decades, but like the Old Testament prophets, through the images of the catastrophes His listeners were to witness, He was also revealing the meaning of other events. By earthly measures these events are far from the "present moment," but on the scale of eternity they are near. Therefore it is not worth guessing how much earthly time the rule of evil in the world will last, even if it lasts for a very long time. The sentence on evil has already been passed, and it is doomed to disappear.

The terrible picture of Jerusalem's destruction is revealed in this passage in all its fullness. As the details accumulate, they become ever more horrifying. The climax is the death of people from “fear and foreboding of what is coming” alone. What could be more terrible? It is precisely at that moment that the Savior comes, and with Him everything takes on a new meaning.

No one among us knows when Christ's second coming will occur. But many people have lived through a moment when the darkness became so dense that not even a tiny gleam of light remained. It is often at just such a time that the Lord visits us and reveals His power to us. Therefore, when we encounter trials, we must not only suffer and grieve, but also try to see God behind them.

The Saviour speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem as an event preceding His return in glory. At first sight, this may seem somewhat strange. After all, everyone knows that Jesus' prophecy concerning Jerusalem was fulfilled long ago, in AD 70, when, following another anti-Roman revolt, the Roman army stormed Jerusalem and razed the city and the Temple to the ground.

There can hardly be any doubt that this was the catastrophe the Saviour meant when He spoke of Jerusalem's destruction. But how, then, are we to understand His words about His imminent return? And how do they accord with His own warning about times and seasons? Viewed in terms of the order of things familiar to us, the situation can indeed only leave us puzzled.

On the other hand, the evangelist tells us nothing about how much time separates Jerusalem's destruction from the Saviour's return. Only one thing is clear: this is a spiritually significant event marking a boundary beyond which lies the final stretch, leading us directly to the end of our present age—to that end when the world will be transformed, the Kingdom revealed in all its fullness, and the Saviour will return in glory.

The end of Jerusalem truly becomes the end of the former order of things, the order that was in fact meant to end with the Messiah's coming. Of course, those awaiting Him thought the end of the old age and the beginning of the new would happen, if not instantaneously, then at least fairly quickly. They did not think that the unfolding of the Kingdom in our world undergoing transformation would take more than a millennium.

The age of the advancing Kingdom is indeed a different age, already more closely bound to the Kingdom as it will be revealed at the end of time than to the former order of things, when the Kingdom could be seen only from afar. We who live in the age of the advancing Kingdom must decide whether we are ready, in this transitional age, to bind our destiny to that advancing Kingdom—so that its triumph may become ours as well.

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.

Very often people ask why the end of the world must be so terrible, why it could not be gentle, like the gentle death of the head of a family surrounded by care and attention. One can answer this way. You surely remember the proverb: a friend is known in trouble. It is easy to keep a gentle appearance and be kind when everything is in order; trouble, however, divides all your friends into true ones and others, into good and evil. Now let us remember that the End of the world, and this is its chief meaning, will bring the separation of good and evil, sheep and goats (Matt. 25:33), wheat and tares (Matt. 13:25). That is, it will become such a universal calamity in which the Lord's true friends will be known. And why exactly should the end be gentle if all of history is far from that? The end will become the apotheosis of the world drama; in it, as though under a magnifying glass, the powers of evil will grow in order to reveal themselves as such, and the powers of good will grow in order to separate themselves sharply from evil. Physicists can recall the Stark effect. Two levels in an atom may be indistinguishable, or degenerate, as we say, but once a field is applied to it, the levels separate and can be distinguished. But what is a field for an atom? A force effect, a shake-up; in other words, a disturbance of ordinary calm existence. Such, it seems, will be the end of the world.

When we see the signs of the approaching end of the world, which the Lord speaks about, we are filled with terror. Fear and confusion take hold of us when we see famines and earthquakes in various places, when nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom. "Where is this world going?" People in many different eras have asked this question, no less in our time than in any other.

Yet the Lord, who told us about all this in advance, does not expect either fear or confusion from us at all. "When these things begin to happen," He says, "straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." This, it turns out, is the feeling with which we should await the end of the world. Not with fear, but with hope and trust. And the only thing we should fear is that we will not have time to fulfill what Christ has entrusted to us, that we will not bring the witness of this hope to all who need salvation.

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.

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.

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.

Jesus says, “My words will not pass away,” in the context of prophetic descriptions of Jerusalem’s destruction and the trials that Christians of the last times will apparently have to endure. Everything Christ speaks of will certainly come to pass, and by seeing these prophecies fulfilled it will be possible to judge how near His coming is. For clarity, the Lord even gives the parable of the fig tree, whose leaves announce the approach of spring.

But in the context of our own lives, this phrase can be understood much more broadly. At times it seems to us that God does not fulfill His promises, that He is deaf and blind. In such moments of crisis, these words can instill confidence that the Lord says and does nothing in vain, that not one word that has gone out from His mouth and not one covenant He has made with us will pass away.

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 Lord describes everything that will happen before His appearance in glory, and He gives us counsel: "...watch at all times and pray that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that are to come and to stand before the Son of Man." That is, something terrible will be happening around us, apparently close to what the prophet Daniel saw (Dan. 7:1-27).

At the same time, the main task of the person who believes in Jesus is to watch and pray in order to escape all this. Not to live through all of it with eyes closed, not to turn away, but to pass through this time while looking at Christ. This is the simplest way to stand before Him. In just this way one can escape all the horrors that are regarded as signs of the Second Coming.

The Lord calls the disciples to restrain themselves so that their hearts will not be weighed down by worldly cares. He says that dependence on the flesh, attachment to eating and drunkenness, and anxiety over worldly affairs bend a person down to the earth like a burden and do not let him not only rise toward heaven, but even remember it and look at it. The effort of fasting is directed precisely toward holding oneself back from this captivity. And further the Lord says that the day of meeting God will come upon us like a net. In the original stands a word meaning a trap, a snare. One can escape this net, says the Lord, only by being free from this oppressive weight of momentary cares.

Remarkable is the goal of watchfulness and prayer that the Lord offers the disciples: that you may be able, or in other versions "be counted worthy," to escape what is coming and to stand before the Son of Man. This is a very precise and clear setting of the goal.

Jesus concludes His description of the calamities that will befall humanity at the end of time with the inward temptations that can overtake anyone. He warns His disciples against sins that can weigh down the heart. The Lord speaks of the cares of this life, drunkenness, and gluttony, which make the heart increasingly incapable of perceiving God. When we allow earthly life to consume us completely and take first place over spiritual life, it is as if we fall asleep, and it becomes ever harder for us to remain sober and spiritually alert. This final trial can therefore prove the most terrible, because it can cause the coming of the Son of Man to pass unnoticed. The Lord often reveals Himself to us in our daily life, but we are unable to see Him or hear His voice because we are too absorbed in our own lives. We can become so focused on ourselves that we are not even able to notice Christ, who may be very near. This passage warns us against this unfeeling heaviness of heart.

We love Christ very much, and often because of this love we feel so sorry for Him in His sufferings that we want so badly for Him to avoid them by some miracle. In a way, we become like Peter when he said, "This shall never happen to You" (Matt. 16:22), only we cry out: if only You could avoid such suffering. And in those moments it seems to us that if Judas had been stopped, nothing would have happened. Judas becomes the object of our involuntary desire for revenge.

But we must not forget the main thing. Christ's suffering was voluntary. In the whole drama, Judas played no decisive role; he was simply a victim, a victim of his own weakness. Therefore it is wrong to see him as the embodiment of world evil or anything of the kind. If Judas had not been there, everything would have happened according to another scenario, but the meaning of the Redemption, as the greatest event in human history, would not have changed.

Another question that often arises in connection with Judas concerns his free will. Was he merely an instrument in the hands of providence? After all, Christ says that he was the "son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled" (John 17:12). Of course, this is not so either. A person is never merely an instrument in God's hands; each person whom He created "in His image and likeness" is too precious to Him. Some exegetes believe that when Christ dipped the morsel and gave it to Judas, He did so not in order to amaze the disciples with His omniscience, but to give Judas a chance to come to his senses, since the conversation was quiet, as we can see if we read the text carefully (John 13:26).

Besides, Judas could have repented as Peter did. But he would have had to repent exactly as Peter did, by bearing worthy fruit of repentance. Judas does not manage to do this. And that makes him deeply pitiful. Pity is the feeling that should arise in us toward this man.

Many have pondered the reason for Judas's betrayal: historians, writers and New Testament scholars. Yet it still remains unknown. Many different suggestions have been made, but none can be considered exhaustive, although many of them apparently did identify particular significant details in the overall picture.

The evangelist, meanwhile, points to only one cause: Satan, who, in his words, ‘entered into Judas’. To a scholar, whether a historian or a biblical specialist, such an explanation will seem clearly inadequate: from a scholarly point of view, it explains nothing. But perhaps the evangelist had no intention of offering a historical explanation? This does not mean that he disregards history or facts.

Luke is indeed a historian. He carefully gathers and analyses everything connected with the Saviour's earthly life, and his books—both his Gospel and the Book of Acts—are rich in factual detail. Yet in Judas's case he evidently prefers to avoid the explanations historians seek. Such an approach can hardly be considered accidental. Of course, there are things a Christian finds painful even to think about, let alone write about. But is that all there is to it?

Perhaps there are things that cannot be explained by anything, by any circumstances or facts? Can evil be explained at all? And, more importantly, does it need to be explained? Every sin, of course, has a cause. Judas's sin was not without a cause either. But what matters for spiritual life is not the causes of a person's action, but its spiritual meaning, determined by the intention the person puts into it. Whatever Judas's motives, the result is clear: he wants to be rid of his Teacher, at any cost, even at the cost of betrayal. Such an intention is essentially wholly irrational, like all evil carried through to its end.

There is a goal here, but no meaning. It is no coincidence that, having carried out his plan, Judas hanged himself: he could not bear the meaninglessness of his own action. This was not intellectual meaninglessness—in that respect he had thought everything through carefully enough and carried it out successfully—but spiritual meaninglessness. The betrayal proved to be nothing but betrayal; it had, and could have, no other spiritual meaning, although when Judas was planning it, it had seemed to have meaning.

The evangelist's mention of Satan is not accidental: here we see the familiar devilish game in which the spirit of darkness tries to create the illusion that evil has spiritual meaning and substance, which it does not and cannot possess. And Luke, apparently, is not concerned with why Judas fell into the trap that had been laid. He only wants to show what can happen to someone who falls into it.

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.