Pray for the Persecuted Church
START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 21:5-19
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OBSERVE:
In Luke 19:19-47 Jesus has entered Jerusalem in triumph riding on the back of a donkey, and has been hailed as king by the people; but he has also wept with grief because Jerusalem didn’t recognize that their visitation by God had come near; he has cleansed the temple of the money changers; and he has gone to the temple daily in order to teach the people — much to the chagrin of the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men. It is clear that Jesus respects and honors what the temple is meant to represent.
But Jesus is also aware that the era of the temple in Jerusalem is about to pass away. In our lectionary passage he describes just a few of the events that will shortly occur.
The setting for these remarks is the temple:
As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts….
Here is an interesting sidebar — here in Luke, the reference to those admiring the temple is rather vague. In the other two of the synoptic Gospels, those who are marveling at the temple are the disciples themselves (Matthew 24:1-3; Mark 13:1-4).
Jesus prophesies events that are soon to take place:
As for these things which you see, the days will come, in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.
What he foresees is the destruction of the temple, which the Roman legions will level to the ground in 70 A.D., killing hundreds of thousands of Jews who were in the city for the Passover feast. This event would happen at least 40 years after the prediction of Jesus.
Naturally, his listeners are now intensely curious. They want to know when these things will happen, and whether there will be warning signs of these events. This gives Jesus the opportunity to address the wider scope of apocalypticism. He warns them not to be deceived.
First, he advises them that many who will claim his name and authority are not from him:
Watch out that you don’t get led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is at hand.’ Therefore don’t follow them.
This would suggest the importance of being well-acquainted with Jesus and his teaching, so as not to be duped by imposters.
He offers a realistic appraisal of the times in which he lives:
When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.
This isn’t necessarily an apocalyptic statement. Wars and violence are constants in human history. I think that’s why he is careful to say the end won’t come immediately.
But then he turns to descriptions that do seem apocalyptic. Not only warfare between nations, but:
There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
Are these events that are soon to take place, or is he describing, with a prophetic eye, what is to happen in the distant future? One thing is clear, when he describes persecutions by kings and governors for his name’s sake, this oppression will happen almost immediately after his ascension. All we need do to confirm this is read Luke’s companion volume, The Acts of the Apostles.
In anticipation of these persecutions, he is offering them encouragement. He promises that he himself will inspire their witness:
It will turn out as a testimony for you. Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
Sadly, even those who are closest to his followers will betray them:
You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.
Jesus has been insistent that his true family are his followers:
My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it (Luke 8:21).
Nevertheless, despite the hate that they will endure for his name’s sake, and even despite death, they will ultimately be saved:
not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will win your lives.
This is surely an eschatological statement, because Jesus knows that some of his followers will be martyred. But because of their enduring faith, they will live eternally.
APPLY:
One thing that we must acknowledge — according to Biblical criterion, the only proof that a prophet is truly a prophet is the fulfillment of their predictions. Moses says in Deuteronomy:
You may say in your heart, “How shall we know the word which Yahweh has not spoken?” When a prophet speaks in Yahweh’s name, if the thing doesn’t follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him (Deuteronomy 18:21-22).
How does Jesus fare as a prophet based on this criterion?
First, Jesus prophesies the fall of Jerusalem some forty years prior to its destruction. He correctly predicts that:
there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.
According to Flavius Josephus, a Jewish eyewitness who was advising the Roman General Titus, the siege of Jerusalem was ghastly. And of the temple itself, he writes:
When at last the walls were breached Titus tried to preserve the Temple by giving orders to his soldiers not to destroy or burn it. But the anger of the soldiers against the Jews was so intense that, maddened by the resistance they encountered, they disobeyed the order of their general and set fire to the Temple. There were great quantities of gold and silver there which had been placed in the Temple for safekeeping. This melted and ran down between the rocks and into the cracks of the stones. When the soldiers captured the Temple area, in their greed to obtain this gold and silver they took long bars and pried apart the massive stones. Thus, quite literally, not one stone was left standing upon another. The Temple itself was totally destroyed, though the wall supporting the area upon which the Temple was built was left partially intact and a portion of it remains to this day, called the Western Wall.
Second, Jesus correctly predicts the persecution that would afflict those who claim his name. Again, we need only read Luke’s Acts of the Apostles to confirm this. But it also has continued until this day.
What of the other predictions of Jesus? For our purposes, in our Gospel lectionary reading, there are predictions of wars, great earthquakes, famines, and plagues and terrors and great signs from heaven. Skeptics might argue that these are phenomena that have afflicted the world throughout history.
I believe that the prophecies we see here are two-fold. On the one hand, Jesus is predicting events that will happen very soon, at least in historical terms. Persecution will begin the moment the disciples begin to preach the death and resurrection of Jesus, just forty days after his resurrection! And the fall of Jerusalem will occur within 40 years. On the other hand, Jesus is also talking about events that will take place centuries, and perhaps even millennia, after his earthly ministry. For example, he predicts his own return, which has not occurred yet:
Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory (Luke 21:27).
We are reminded of God’s perspective on history. We see history as linear, with a beginning, middle and end. And because our lives are only a very tiny slice of millions of years of this history, a century or a millennium seems very long.
God, however, sees time as now because he is eternal. We are finite, God is infinite. So, except for that one brief moment when God enters into history in a Person, God transcends all time. We are reminded that God’s perspective on time is relative:
But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8).
I would add that this comparison of a thousand years to one day is simply an illustration that God is not bound by time as we are.
So, the prophecies that Jesus gives elsewhere are still being fulfilled. And Jesus himself gives a helpful interpretation of the wars, famines, plagues, and earthquakes in The Gospel of Matthew:
all these things are the beginning of birth pains (Matthew 24:8).
RESPOND:
[A Note from Celeste: Tom originally wrote this Bible study in 2016. He passed away in 2018. Since the lectionary cycles every 3 years, I am able to re-post his studies on the lectionary Scriptures.
The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church for 2022 was November 6. I encourage you to visit the Open Doors website for more information on the Christian martyrs of today.]
This may be a very appropriate passage for November 13, 2016. In some denominations, this day is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Jesus predicted that his followers would be persecuted. Today, there are estimates that up to 100 million Christians have been persecuted in one year in up to 111 nations. Open Doors reports that 7,000 Christians were killed for their faith between Nov. 1, 2014, and Oct. 31, 2015.
For those who live in nations where there is open and even official hostility to Christianity, the words of Jesus are not academic. For those of us who live in nations where Christianity is a majority religion, we tend to lose perspective. We think if the local courthouse caves in to secularists and removes a nativity scene that we are being persecuted.
We need to repent of our shallow perspective, and truly pray for those whose churches are burned to the ground, who worship in secret, who may be arrested, or even beheaded because of their testimony as Christians.
Lord, you promise to give us the words that we need when we face persecution for your name’s sake. For those of us who can only imagine what it may be like to face persecution in Syria or North Korea or elsewhere, give us the words that we may pray for our sisters and brothers who live with uncertainty and fear every day. Amen.
PHOTOS: "persecuted church" by Imagens Cristas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 