NOTES for Mat 24:3-35

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.