Gospel: Luke 21:20-28

 

In today’s Gospel we have the continuation of the Apocalyptic Discourse which gives two signs, the 7th and the 8th, which should take place before the end of this world in order to give place to the new world, new Heavens and New Earth. The seventh sign is the destruction of Jerusalem and the eighth is the upsetting of the old creation.

 

Jerusalem was for the Jews the Eternal City. And now it was destroyed! How can this fact be explained? Is it possible that God is not aware of this? It is difficult for us to imagine the trauma and the crisis of faith that the destruction of Jerusalem caused in the communities both of the Jews and of the Christians. Hearing Jesus who announces persecution (6th sign) and the destruction of Jerusalem (7th sign), the readers of the persecuted communities in the time of Luke concluded saying: “This is our day! We are in the 6th and 7th signs!”

 

The Christian communities asked “how many stages or signs are still lacking until the end arrives? The response is now given in the 8th sign: "There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on earth nations in agony… “. The 8th sign is different from the other signs. The signs in heaven and on earth are an indication of what is taking place, at the same time, at the end of the old world, of the ancient creation, it is the beginning of the coming of the new Heaven and the new earth. 

 

When the shell of the egg begins to crack it is a sign that the novelty is about to appear. It is the coming of a New World which is provoking the disintegration of the ancient world. The title Son of Man is the name that Jesus liked to use. In the four Gospels this name appears more than 80 times! Any pain which we bear from now, any struggle in behalf of life, any persecution for the sake of justice, any birth pangs, are a seed of the Kingdom which will come in the 8th sign.