As we near the end of the liturgical year and the new liturgical year begins with Advent two Sundays from now, we are also nearing the end of reading Luke’s Gospel. We hear today Jesus’ words when he was teaching in the temple sometime after he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and before the events of his Passion beginning Holy Thursday evening.
As Jesus was teaching in the temple, some admired the temple’s beauty which in turn led Jesus to tell them the time would come when it would be destroyed. Just a couple of days before today’s Gospel, when Jesus was approaching Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, when he saw the city, he wept (Luke 19:41) and said:
If this day you only knew what makes for peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation. (Luke 19:42-44)
They didn’t recognize the time of their visitation—in other words, they didn’t accept Jesus and unfortunately a disaster would come on the city as a result. Jerusalem was besieged for four months by the Romans in AD 70 and the temple was destroyed. What Jesus said came to pass. That was the end of the sacrifices of all those animals in the temple that could never atone properly for our sins. Jesus’ one sacrifice of himself was the perfect sacrifice that atoned for our sins (Heb 9:26).
Sometimes, we hear people talk about rebuilding the temple but that is a misunderstanding of Sacred Scripture and the New Covenant. Jesus has replaced the temple. There have been attempts to rebuild the temple, but they all failed, some in very dramatic ways. What else would you expect? If people were to rebuild the temple to reinstate the animal sacrifices, that would be saying Jesus is not the way to the Father or salvation. Either the temple and its animal sacrifices is the way to God and salvation, or Jesus is the way. Jesus says in John’s Gospel: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)
As well as a warning about the temple, Jesus also had a word of warning for his followers. Before the destruction of the temple, they would be persecuted simply for being his followers. Just as Jesus was persecuted, his followers would be also. In John’s Gospel, Jesus said:
If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. (John 15:18-20)
That is happening today, not a bloody persecution here, but a persecution of sorts of those who try to follow Jesus. We probably all know people who don’t want to be seen going to church by their peers because of what their peers would say to them. In the past, there were secret Masses to avoid persecution by the British; now, people don’t want to be seen going to Mass to avoid persecution by the Irish! Jesus’ last words in the Gospel today are particularly relevant to those who continue to follow him: “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” (Luke 21:19) Either the temple and its animal sacrifices is the way to God and salvation, or Jesus is the way, and we could add: either give in to your peers or follow Jesus. By your perseverance in following Jesus, you will secure your lives.
We hear a similar positive thought at the end of the first reading from Malachi. It begins with a word of warning for those who are not humble before God: Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven, when all the proud and all evildoers will be stubble.” (Mal 3:19 or 4:1) But then we hear: But for you who fear my name, there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays (Matt 3:20 or 4:2). For Christians, Jesus is that sun of justice or sun of righteousness. Just as rays of light go out from the sun, healing is from Jesus. The original Hebrew of Malachi says for those who respect God, the sun of righteousness will arise with healing in its wings—wings and not rays of light. That is very interesting for our Jewish brothers and sisters who have accepted Jesus as the Messiah and are now Jewish Christians. They see it fulfilled in the Jewish prayer shawl draped over Jesus’ shoulders and the healing from its wings, its tassels, came to the hemorrhaging woman who touched Jesus’ prayer shawl. It is interesting for us also because earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus said:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house will be abandoned. (Luke 13:34-35)
Jesus used the image of a hen spreading wings over us if we accept to follow him. If the people of Jerusalem at his time had accepted him, their house, their city, would not have been abandoned. If we accept to follow Jesus under his wings, he promises us, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.” (Luke 21:19)
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2025
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Thirty-Third Sunday Year C
Related Homilies:
Jesus is the way to the Father 2022
Your perseverance will secure your lives 2016
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When there is division because of Jesus we take a stand for Jesus