“Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near,” (Luke 21:28).
Thanks be to God who has taken us full circle and brought us to the beginning of another Liturgical Year: Advent.
Even though most people look to the Gregorian calendar to catch the excitement of a new beginning at the New Year, a good number of others have special times of the year in which they celebrate new beginnings such as birthdays, anniversaries and other religious calendars. For some Christian denominations, Advent begins the Liturgical Year when preparations are made for the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas! It also looks forward to the necessary preparations for His promised return. How people choose to relate with Advent should not be a matter for much argument, but rather an opportunity for reflection, evaluation, amendment of life and re-visioning. It is an opportunity to assess our lives and set new goals for our walk with God and devotion to Him.
Let’s take a closer focus on one of the statements of the Lord Jesus Christ as He prepared His disciples for His exit and for the close of the age. The immediate setting for this verse we are looking at, was the disciples’ astonished question when Jesus made the shocking revelation that the beautiful Temple would be razed to the ground: “Then, as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations, He said, ‘these things which you see — the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down,” (Luke 21:5-6).
Herod’s temple was the temple in use during the ministry of Jesus. Constructed by the wick Herod, the Great (37-4 BC), its construction details — both architectural and engineering were a display of genius. How could such a solid structure be brought down? This is where we must pause for meditation. We have had so many solid structures in different spheres of human endeavour through different generations right to our day. Some of these structures have become the foundations upon, which philosophies, worldviews, analyses, theories, among others, have been propounded and established.
We can further stretch it to include iconic personalities, and celebrities who command the limelight any day, anywhere. They are everywhere both in religion, media, business, sports, academia and science, among others. Whatever they say wins the day with cultic followership. Some benefits notwithstanding, the tragedy is also that some of these feats have moved men to tamper with unchangeable truths about God and His commandments for life. The gender confusion and controversies of our day were bizarre and unthinkable not long ago. The defiant posture now seems to be: how dare God tell us how to live?
In our passage in reference – Luke 21, the disciples asked some disturbing questions: “Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place?” (V7). The Lord Jesus went on to tell them about more disturbing things ahead and how they should respond (See verses 10-19).
History has unfolded some of these and some are still unfolding. They include things terrestrial — in the earthly sphere, while some are completely cosmic and extraterrestrial — despite man’s advance into space.
As we hear of wars and rumour of wars, and as we pass through times of stress, which the Lord Himself predicted so precisely and graphically— “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken” — we must hold on to the hope of His return, which is also included in this passage of frightening predictions: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (v27). We must not allow any mindset to take this hope from us or to make us careless about doing something to secure our eternal destination through faith in Christ.
Advent, therefore, is the time to recall and heed the admonition of the Lord Jesus Himself as all these convulsions are on the increase: “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near,” (Luke 21:28).
• Most Reverend Emmanuel A.S. Egbunu is the Bishop of Lokoja
