GOSPEL REFLECTION, WEDNESDAY, WEEK 34 IN ORDINARY TIME, 26 NOVEMBER 2025

Luke 21:12-19.  Today’s gospel is another part of an apocalyptic section of Luke’ gospel which describes ominous events and signs that will precede the Second Coming of Christ.  In Jewish terms, these events and signs mark The Day of the Lord, a time of tribulation and difficulty that comes after The Present Age, which is not capable of being entirely remade.  The Day of the Lord, a time of cosmic upheaval , precedes the The Age to Come, a new age in which all things are made new.

Today’s gospel describes the ominous signs of The Day of the Lord, a terrible time of the destruction of The Present Age, the birth-pangs of The Age to Come.  Jesus’ teaching about The Age to Come is what he names as the fullness of the Kingdom of God.  Before that there will be a time of terrible signs and events.  Christians will be persecuted and experience exceedingly difficult times in their lives, a cruel time of betrayal and desolation.  The Old Testament prophets say that The Day of the Lord will come suddenly; Jesus says the same.  It will come ‘like a thief in the night.’  The old world will be shattered and pass away.  Only then will come the glorious Second Coming.  Jesus was completely certain that after these difficult days when he will die and be buried, that in the end of time he will come again. 

We may find it exceedingly difficult to relate to these apocalyptic descriptions of world destruction, although the early Christians lived by them.  What are we to make of them because many have taken these words to build ferocious images of the end times?  Whatever they will signify, we can take them as at the ground of great hope and expectation  in the The Age to Come, in which Jesus the Lord returns in glory.  That hope and expectation are really the main theme of what Advent is all about.  We wait in hope and expectation that the Lord will come again, just as assuredly he came in that first Christmas.  Under the pressure of the secular way of treating this season, we may have lost some of that hope and expectation which must lie at the heart of our Christian lives.  This Advent is a time that, with God’s grace, we may renew our hope and expectation and take deep joy in the Lord in both his comings.