NOTES for Mat 24:12-13

Speaking about His return and about the last times, Jesus specifically warns His disciples and followers against being carried away by false prophets and false messiahs. But where could such fascination come from among those who, as it would seem, had already settled the question of the Messiah?

The answer to that question may be found in the traditional ideas of that time about both the Messiah and the Kingdom. In those days, among the Jewish people, it was widely believed that the Temple in which Jesus preached would become the messianic Temple. The ideas about the Kingdom themselves still remained close to pre-exilic ones: in the popular religious consciousness, the Kingdom was perceived as an earthly state, though one ruled by the Messiah who would head it. And the apostles, it must be said, were not free from such ideas either; even on the day of the Ascension they were still sure that now, at last, their Teacher would finally begin building the messianic state whose appearance they had awaited so long.

Yet it was precisely the first, in part, and the second, mainly, generation of Christians who would witness the very tragic events Jesus is now speaking about. The messianic uprising of A.D. 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple became not only a national but also a religious catastrophe for the people. For the Jews it meant that they had not waited long enough for the Messiah after all, and for Christians it meant that He had not returned before the end of time, as He had promised. In such a situation confusion and wavering would be entirely natural. Self-appointed "messiahs" and "teachers" or "prophets" who wanted to "correct" or "supplement" the Gospel would have appeared. Indeed, if the Temple had already been destroyed and the Kingdom had still not come, did this not mean that something had been missed? Maybe the Founder of the Church had left something unsaid or unfinished?

Such doubts could become, and in their time did become, fertile ground for all kinds of theories and concepts that use Christian language but in substance have nothing in common with Christianity. Of course, the chief answer, as usually happens in the Church, was the new revelation received from Jesus about the era that had begun, about the spiritual meaning of the events taking place during that era, and about its completion; it found its embodiment in the Book of Revelation. But Jesus, as we can see, considers it necessary to warn His disciples and followers in advance. After all, the things at stake are too serious: the Kingdom and salvation.

The prophetic discourse on the Mount of Olives, which we read today in the Gospel according to Matthew, has aroused enormous interest from the moment it was written. At times this interest took on entirely unhealthy proportions, especially in certain heretical sects. But Christians who were "normal" from the point of view of confession and mental health also did not ignore this text. Perhaps only Revelation can compare with it in this regard... There is something in us that draws our attention to the end of the world... Perhaps the madness of the world in which we live, apart from our will, calls up thoughts of the end in us... Or perhaps this is a manifestation of an instinctive fear of responsibility for sins?

Yet in the content of the words of the Lord Jesus, what matters for us is not only what horrors and cataclysms will accompany the end of the world. Much more important is the revelation of the end as such. For our attitude toward the horrors and madness that already exist depends substantially on this. It is one thing if this will go on endlessly: our wars, hostility and foolishness, our cruelty and helplessness, only occasionally marked by flights of the human spirit inspired by the touch of the Almighty. It is something altogether different if we believe the Lord's words that against the background of evil's apparent triumph there will come the day of God's victory, the day when the Creator's design will be fulfilled in full. And still more important for us is that this Day of the Lord has already come, when the Savior of the world ascended the Cross for our sake.

Over the centuries these lines have been understood in different ways. At first they were seen as a prophecy of the imminent end and the coming of Jesus, which would occur before the generation of witnesses to His life had passed away. Then, as bewilderment over an unfulfilled promise. Then, as obscure words about catastrophes. Then, as something like memento mori, a reminder that no one knows his hour. Now, for some, this is a guide to action in the event of the second coming; for others, material for calculating the "signs of the times" and the deadlines that are supposed to be fulfilled at any moment; for still others, a riddle no one knows how to approach.

One way or another, they reflect the disciples' faith that the story of Jesus did not end with His death. More than that, it did not end with His Resurrection. It will not end at all, as long as this world stands... and after its end.

Commentators sometimes call today's passage the "little Apocalypse." This name is clearly connected with the fact that Jesus' account here of the end times recalls some descriptions of the "great Apocalypse," the Book of Revelation of John. And still, the differences between them are no fewer than the similarities. The chief difference is that Jesus tells His disciples about events that will occur during the lifetime of the first generation of Christians. The only exception is the conclusion of the account, which describes Christ's return in glory, verses 29-31. Jesus, as we see, connects it with the events of 70 AD, when, as a result of the anti-Roman uprising raised by the Zealots, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans after a long siege, and Jews were forbidden to settle in Judea, verse 15. By the "abomination of desolation" spoken of in the Book of Daniel, Jesus clearly means the desecration and destruction of the Temple by Roman soldiers when they took the city.

However, as the eyewitness to these events, the historian Flavius Josephus, reports, Christians and Pharisees left the city before the siege began, and the Christians, as we see, were in this case following a direct instruction from their Teacher, verses 16-20. Those who remained in the city, judging by the testimony of the same Flavius Josephus, really did suffer the terrible disasters about which Jesus had warned His disciples, verse 21. The uprising was preceded by a period of feverishly intense messianic expectations, when claimants to messiahship appeared literally every day. It is no accident that Jesus found it necessary to warn the disciples against being carried away by such false messiahs, verses 23-25. But the good news of the true Messiah had been heard throughout the Roman Empire even before 70 AD, verse 14.

Here a natural question arises: if Jesus' account concerns events that took place in the first decades of Christian history, how should we understand His words about the end of history, which was to come after those events? Jesus' account was so well known to the first generation of Christians that those who survived the catastrophe of 70 AD were in complete bewilderment: everything predicted by the Teacher had come true, and still He was not returning. Meanwhile Jesus Himself said nothing about dates: He only pointed to the events of 70 AD as the end of earthly history. Everything further evidently unfolds as part of some other process, no longer defined by this history.

Another history begins: the history of the Kingdom entering the world. It is a history in which each of us will have to take part in one way or another. And exactly what that participation will be depends only on us.

The disciples see in the buildings of the Jerusalem Temple a sign of God's firmly established rule in this world. The Temple was built forever; even when destroyed, it was rebuilt and became still more majestic. The solidity of stone buildings symbolizes the unshakable foundations of life and the steady course of history.

But the Lord says that the destiny of the world is more complex than human ideas about it. The human freedom to choose good and evil means that salvation can be attained only as a personal choice requiring endurance. He says that for the name of Christ the disciples will have to endure rejection and suffering. This twofold destiny of the world - terrible disasters and the mystery of hearts turning to God - is an important revelation about human freedom.

No less important for us are Christ's words that the triumph of evil has a limited, temporary character, that the end of the world is coming, and that it will come when the possibility of choosing Christ as shepherd has been offered to everyone.

Jesus' words about natural disasters, epidemics, wars, and social cataclysms as labor pains in which the Kingdom is born have often been interpreted as an indication that all this will happen in the last times, becoming their characteristic feature. It is no accident that every great war or major epidemic, not to mention upheavals and revolutions, became a reason for rumors to appear in near-church circles that the last times were near.

Meanwhile, Jesus Himself says directly that the day of His return in glory and of the triumph of the Kingdom cannot be calculated, and the reason is not that this date is hidden, but that it has not yet been determined: after all, the history of the Kingdom is a divine-human process, and when it will be revealed in fullness depends not only on God but also on people. As for everything listed, Jesus calls it the "beginning" of the birth pains of the Kingdom not in the sense in which we most often understand the word "beginning" today, but in the sense of their source or primary cause.

The point here is not some special "infernal" quality of particular events, although if we speak of wars and social cataclysms, characteristic features of fallen human nature sometimes show themselves here as vividly as possible. The point is that every such event becomes for all humanity, or for some part of it, a critical situation, sometimes a liminal one, and at times simply one beyond all limits spiritually as well as socially. And such a situation can always become the last one, whether we are speaking of an individual person, a people, or all humanity as a whole.

After all, Christian history, the history of the advancing Kingdom, is on the one hand the history of Christian righteousness (or, as it is sometimes called, Christian holiness), and on the other hand the history of the ever-expanding evil in which the world lies. And every cataclysm, especially a social one, is a spiritual crisis connected with this confrontation. And it will hardly be surprising if one of them turns out to be the last. But expecting each crisis to be the last is also not worth doing.