‘By your endurance you will gain your souls’

Patrick Comerford

Luke 21: 5-19

5 Καί τινων λεγόντων περὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ, ὅτι λίθοις καλοῖς καὶ ἀναθήμασιν κεκόσμηται, εἶπεν, 6 Ταῦτα ἃ θεωρεῖτε, ἐλεύσονται ἡμέραι ἐν αἷς οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται λίθος ἐπὶ λίθῳ ὃς οὐ καταλυθήσεται.

7 Ἐπηρώτησαν δὲ αὐτὸν λέγοντες, Διδάσκαλε, πότε οὖν ταῦτα ἔσται, καὶ τί τὸ σημεῖον ὅταν μέλλῃ ταῦτα γίνεσθαι; 8 ὁ δὲ εἶπεν, Βλέπετε μὴ πλανηθῆτε: πολλοὶ γὰρ ἐλεύσονται ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματί μου λέγοντες, Ἐγώ εἰμι: καί, Ὁ καιρὸς ἤγγικεν: μὴ πορευθῆτε ὀπίσω αὐτῶν.

9 ὅταν δὲ ἀκούσητε πολέμους καὶ ἀκαταστασίας, μὴ πτοηθῆτε: δεῖ γὰρ ταῦτα γενέσθαι πρῶτον, ἀλλ' οὐκ εὐθέως τὸ τέλος. 10 Τότε ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς, Ἐγερθήσεται ἔθνος ἐπ' ἔθνος καὶ βασιλεία ἐπὶ βασιλείαν, 11 σεισμοί τε μεγάλοι καὶ κατὰ τόπους λιμοὶ καὶ λοιμοὶ ἔσονται, φόβητρά τε καὶ ἀπ' οὐρανοῦ σημεῖα μεγάλα ἔσται.

12 πρὸ δὲ τούτων πάντων ἐπιβαλοῦσιν ἐφ' ὑμᾶς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν καὶ διώξουσιν, παραδιδόντες εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς καὶ φυλακάς, ἀπαγομένους ἐπὶ βασιλεῖς καὶ ἡγεμόνας ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματός μου: 13 ἀποβήσεται ὑμῖν εἰς μαρτύριον. 14 θέτε οὖν ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν μὴ προμελετᾶν ἀπολογηθῆναι, 15 ἐγὼ γὰρ δώσω ὑμῖν στόμα καὶ σοφίαν ἧ οὐ δυνήσονται ἀντιστῆναι ἢ ἀντειπεῖν ἅπαντες οἱ ἀντικείμενοι ὑμῖν. 16 παραδοθήσεσθε δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ γονέων καὶ ἀδελφῶν καὶ συγγενῶν καὶ φίλων, καὶ θανατώσουσιν ἐξ ὑμῶν, 17 καὶ ἔσεσθε μισούμενοι ὑπὸ πάντων διὰ τὸ ὄνομά μου. 18 καὶ θρὶξ ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν οὐ μὴ ἀπόληται. 19 ἐν τῇ ὑπομονῇ ὑμῶν κτήσασθε τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν.

5 When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he [Jesus] said, 6 ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’

7 They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’ 8 And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.

9 ‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’ 10 Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

12 ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.’

Introduction

This morning’s reading (Luke 21: 5-19) for our Bible study is the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for the Sunday after next, the Second Sunday before Advent (14 November 2010).

I have said before that these Gospel readings in the RCL for Sundays at the end of the season of Pentecost read like readings for Lent and preparation for Holy Week rather than readings for the weeks leading up to Advent. But Advent is a season of preparation for Christ coming among us as God incarnate, as our king.

We have seen in the past few weeks how Christ, like Isaiah (50: 7) and Ezekiel (21: 1-2) in the Old Testament, has “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9: 51), while his disciples, first in awe, then in shock, follow him on that road to Jerusalem and the Temple. This reading is from the last story about Christ teaching in the Temple.

In between our Gospel readings for the Fourth Sunday before Advent, 31 October (Luke 19: 1-10) and for the Third Sunday before Advent, 7 November (Luke 20: 27-38), the Lectionary readings skipped over Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, when the “whole multitude ... began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power they had seen, saying ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 19: 38).

On his arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus weeps, invokes sayings from Jeremiah against a city that “did not recognise the time of your visitation from God” (Luke 19: 41-44), and then faces up to three attempts by the authorities to entrap him, each concluding with Christ silencing his opponents (Luke 20: 1-19; 20: 20-26; and 20: 27-40), the third of which we looked at last week.

Setting the scene

The scene has been set in the verses in this chapter that immediately precede this Sunday reading. Christ is sitting by the Temple Treasury, where he watches the poor widow offer the smallest of coins (verses 1-4).

The scene does not change as he goes on to speak about the Temple, the Nation, and the looming future. But, instead of questioning him about what he has just said about this widow, which might have offered a focus for how the politics of God work, those around him, probably a wider group than just his own disciples, cannot get past the physical presence and appearance of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem, then revered as a sign of God’s presence, even as the dwelling place of God’s sheltering protection for Israel (see Luke 13:34-35).

The coming of God’s reign

Christ is no longer facing attacks from others. Instead, he alerts his followers to the hardships they face ahead, beyond the time of his journey. But as he approached Jerusalem, Christ had declared that God’s “visitation” had come with his reign, that the very stones of the Temple would testify against those who rejected him (19: 41-44).

Now he again predicts that all the stones will be thrown down (21: 6), as one scene in the divine drama.

A web of prophetic citations is woven through these verses. These include words and phrases from Jeremiah 4, 7, 14, and 21; Isaiah 19; and Ezekiel 14 and 38. Maybe we could say that Jesus, like the prophets before him, was not very original in what he said. But there is still the question: how faithfully did these prophetic words and warnings of destruction speak to the people of the time, to the people who heard Christ speak?

But Christ also differentiates his teaching from the teaching of the false prophets, who also quoted the ancient words of God. While announcing the coming judgment, Christ cautions against following prophets who claim to know God’s timetable, even invoking Christ’s own name.

The account in this chapter of Christ’s words could be compared with Mark 13, and its intensity of the coming “tribulation.” Or we might go back to Luke 17: 22-37 which also reminds us that Christ’s death is an integral part of God’s timetable: “But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation” (17: 25). Luke’s longer account of Christ’s discourse (21: 5-36) assures his readers they are experiencing not “the end” … but the period of “tribulations” or “persecutions” through which believers will enter the kingdom (see Acts 14: 22).

And so, Saint Luke’s account of Christ’s speech does not provide yet another programme or timetable to predict the working out of God’s plan, down to the last second. The prophets and Christ teach us that the struggles in history and in disturbances in nature are more than accidental. They remind us that God triumphed over chaos in creating the natural world, and yet both human and supra-historical forces are still contending for the earth. Christ’s followers are aware, therefore, that his death and resurrection is God’s ultimate act in a struggle of cosmic proportions. Only the final outcome is sure.

The gift and strength of endurance

As the Apostle Paul testifies: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, be we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8: 22-23).

The hope to which Jesus testifies in this passage, therefore, is no trivial denial of the struggles, the pain and agony of human life, or the catastrophic forces of nature. These are real, and the prophets of old have interpreted such devastations as the context of God’s saving work. Christ joins this chorus, bringing it close to the concrete realities of early Christians. But he says: “This will give you an opportunity to testify” (verse 13) and “By your endurance you will gain your souls” (verse 19).

The “opportunity to testify” does not require Christ’s followers to know every answer to the question: “Why do bad things happen to good people.”

Christ is promising that he will give us “words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” His earlier promise of the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in times of testimony (see Luke 12: 11-12) now becomes his own promise. When he commissions them as “my witnesses” (Acts 1: 8), he assures them of the power and the presence of his Holy Spirit, and the stories in Acts will display the fulfilment of this promise of God’s "mouth and wisdom" (see Acts 4: 13-14; 16: 6-7). And so, even these harsh prophecies in Luke 21 are filled with the confidence of Christ’s enduring presence.

And the “endurance” that “will gain your souls” (verse 19) is also not mere heroic persistence.

The early Christians knew all about endurance, and that endurance was often tested. Paul echoes that theme in Romans 5: 3-5, then transformed this endurance from reliance on human strength to trusting in Gods love: “… we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

Saving endurance is a gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 6:

Christ foretells the destruction of the Temple (“all will be thrown down”). This event took place some 40 years in the future. At that time, Roman legions (“armies,” see verse 20) surrounded the city.

Verse 7:

In Christ’s time, people were concerned about when the world would end, and what signs would indicate “this is about to take place.”

Verses 7-11:

Jesus begins to answer, in terms drawn from the prophets, including Micah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Joel) and from contemporary books, such as II Esdras. “The time” (verse 8) is the time chosen by God for the end of the era. He then adds “the end will not follow immediately” (verse 9).

Verses 12-19:

Christ then diverts to issues that matter now: the treatment his followers will receive, and how they should react to it

They will be treated as he has been: they will be accused of heresy in “synagogues,” brought before civil courts (“kings and governors”) and sent to prison.

Verse 13:

On these occasions, they should take it as “an opportunity to testify,” for testimony (verse 13, μαρτύριον), to tell the good news, we might even read into it to be martyrs.

Verse 14:

They should be themselves, and not act out a role. The Greek word translated “prepare ... in advance” (προμελετάω, verse 14) literally means to practise as in to practise a gesture or rehearse a dance.

Verses 16-17:

To follow Christ entails suffering and betrayal and being “hated.”

Verse 19:

Perseverance under duress will gain you eternal life.

Some questions:

How would you relate this Gospel reading to the Old Testament reading for that Sunday (Isaiah 65: 17-25), which has a very different vision for the future of Jerusalem?

A problem that continues to dominate parish priorities is the emphasis on buildings rather than people. Are there “building blocks” we need to knock down so we can start again and care for little people like the poor widow who is passed over in this reading?

Is it time to rebuild, become the kind of temples God really wants?

Should we change church politics and priorities for God’s politics and priorities?

In pursuing God’s vision for the future of the church and the Kingdom, are we relying on our own knowledge and strengths?

What risks are we willing to take for our core values?

How would you be prophetic and offer hope in the face of the current economic “earthquake” we are facing in Ireland?

How do you read the signs of the times when it comes to global events?

Have you a vision for a new heaven and a new earth (see Isaiah 65: 17-25)?

How do you balance concerns for the wider world with those for the widow and her small coin in your parish?

How would you relate the Gospel reading to the Epistle reading (II Thessalonians 3: 6-13) and keeping away from believers who do not remain true to the essentials of faith?

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay is based on notes for a Bible study in a tutorial group with MTh students on 3 November 2010.

All Souls’ Night: the twilight zone?

The Harrowing of Hell ... the icon reminds us that God reaches into the deepest depths to pull forth souls into the kingdom of light

Patrick Comerford

All Souls’ Day, Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Dublin:

8 p.m., 2 November 2010.

Wisdom 3: 1-9; Romans 5: 5-11; John 5: 19-25.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Today, on All Souls’ Day, we remember with gratitude and in prayer the faithful departed, and we look forward to being united with them again in the Communion of Saints before the Throne of the Lamb, when the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant are joined as one heavenly host.

The custom of remembering the faithful departed on this day dates back to the tenth and eleventh centuries. In time, the entire month of November became associated in the Western Church with prayer for the departed.

Initially, many of the Reformers rejected All Souls’ Day because of the payments demanded for masses for the dead and the abuse in the sale of indulgences. And so, Anglicans fused All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

Many Cambridge colleges owe their foundation to endowments to colleges of priests to pray for the souls of the benefactors, including Saint Catharine’s and Corpus Christi, where the Reformation Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, was once Master. But All Souls’ College in Oxford is one of the most unusual colleges I have visited in any university. Its fellows live in an academic limbo or purgatory, for they are the only members of the college, and there are no undergraduates, no students to teach or tutor for examinations; yet to become a fellow one must sit what is regarded as the world’s hardest and toughest examination.

Originally established, like so many Oxford and Cambridge colleges, for the theological education and training of English clergy, the full name of the body corporate is: “The Warden and the College of the Souls of all Faithful People deceased in the University of Oxford.” That wonderful name is a colourful reminder that the tradition of remembering All Souls survived, even in a college name, in Anglicanism through the Reformation, and through the dark days of the mid-17th century.

Twilight at All Souls’ College, Oxford (Photograph © Benjamin Breen)

All Souls’ Day was renewed in the Anglican tradition in many places in the 19th century. Its observance was restored in the Alternative Service Book in 1980, and now features in Common Worship as a Lesser Festival, the “Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day).” Commemorating those who died in faith is not a denial of heaven or of hell. Rather than being a denial of the essentials of the salvation story it is, in fact, an affirmation of the salvation story, a thanksgiving for our salvation and our redemption.

The Church remembers the faithful departed throughout the entire year. This day is different only in so far as it is the general, solemn day of commemoration when the Church remembers and gives thanks for all the faithful departed, whether or not we or the Church regard them as saints.

We should in prayer remember and give thanks for our departed relatives and friends, and entrust them to God’s tender love, care and mercy.

We do this in civic society – when we name streets, bridges, even shopping centres and airports, after the dead.

We do this in our families – if we drink toasts at meals to the fond memory of the dead, why not do so too at the family meal par excellence, the Eucharist?

If we can remember the dead of the Somme and Flanders, Gallipoli and Suvla, Derry, Aughrim and the Boyne, on Sunday marches to our parish churches, then we can remember the dead in our prayers in those churches when we are before the Throne of the Lamb, anticipating being in their company at the Heavenly Banquet.

If we erect monuments in our churches and gravestones in our churchyards to those we want all to remember, it is a more fitting memorial to bring their names in prayer before Christ who has conquered death once and for all.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition there are several All Souls’ Days throughout the year, especially on Saturdays. Saturday is the day Christ lay in the Tomb, and so all Saturdays are days for general prayer for the departed.

The Western tradition of the Church has traditionally contemplated the cross, and then the empty tomb … and has been totally agnostic about what happened in between, between dusk that Friday afternoon and dawn that Sunday morning. The deep joys of the Resurrection have often been overshadowed in the Western Church by the Way of the Cross, as though the Cross leads only to death. We have neglected Christ’s resting place, his tomb, and given little thought to what was happening in the Holy Sepulchre that holy weekend.

The Eastern Churches, which lack a clearly defined doctrine of Purgatory, have been more comfortable with exploring in depth the theme of Christ’s Harrowing of Hell. For, while Christ’s body lays in the tomb, he is visiting those who were dead.

The icon of the Harrowing of Hell reminds us that God reaches into the deepest depths to pull forth souls into the kingdom of light. It reminds us how much we are unable to comprehend – let alone take to heart as our own – our creedal statement that Christ “descended into Hell.”

The Apostle Peter tells us that when Christ died he went and preached to the spirits in prison “who in former times did not obey … For this is the reason the Gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that … they might live in the spirit as God does” (I Peter 3: 15b- 4: 8).

The Early Church taught that after his death Christ descended into hell and rescued all the souls, starting with Adam and Eve, who had died under the Fall. The Harrowing of Hell is intimately bound up with the Resurrection, the Raising from the Dead, for as Christ is raised from the dead he also plummets the depths to bring up, to raise up, those who are dead, no matter where that may be in time and in space. The Harrowing of Hell carries us into the gap in time between Christ’s death and his resurrection.

In icons of the Harrowing of Hell, Christ stands on the shattered doors of Hell. Sometimes, two angels are seen in the pit binding Satan. And we see Christ pulling out of Hell Adam and Eve, imprisoned there since their deaths, imprisoned along with all humanity because of sin. Christ breaks down the doors of Hell and leads the souls of the lost into Heaven. It is the most radical reversal we can imagine. Death does not have the last word, we need not live our lives buried in fear. If Adam and Eve are forgiven, and the Sin of Adam is annulled and destroyed, who is beyond forgiveness?

In discussing the “Descent into Hell,” Hans Urs von Balthasar argues that if Christ’s mission did not result in the successful application of God’s love to every intended soul, how then can we think of it as a success? He emphasises Christ’s descent into the fullness of death, so as to be “Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 5).

However, in her book Light in Darkness, Alyssa Lyra Pitstick says Christ did not descend into the lowest depths of Hell, that he only stayed in the top levels. She cannot agree that Christ’s descent into Hell entails experiencing the fullness of alienation, sin and death, which he then absorbs, transfigures, and defeats through the Resurrection. Instead, she says, Christ descends only to the “limbo of the Fathers” in which the righteous, justified dead of the Old Testament waited for his coming.

And so her argument robs the Harrowing of Hell of its soteriological significance. For her, Christ does not descend into Hell and experience there the depths of alienation between God and humanity opened up by sin. She leaves us with a Christ visiting an already-redeemed and justified collection of Old Testament saints to let them know that he has defeated death – as though he is merely ringing on the doorbell for those ready to come out.

However, Archbishop Rowan Williams has written beautifully, in The Indwelling of Light, on the Harrowing of Hell. Christ is the new Adam who rescues humanity from its past, and who starts history anew. “The resurrection … is an introduction – to our buried selves, to our alienated neighbours, to our physical world.”

He says: “Adam and Eve stand for wherever it is in the human story that fear and refusal began … [This] icon declares that wherever that lost moment was or is – Christ [is] there to implant the possibility … of another future.” [Rowan Williams, The Dwelling of the Light: Praying with Icons of Christ, p. 38.]

I ask myself: what’s the difference between the top levels of Hell and the bottom levels of Hell? Is my Hell in my heart of my own creation? In my mind, in my home, where I live and I work, in my society, in this world? Is hell the nightmares from the past I cannot shake off, or the fears for the future when it looks gloomy and desolate for the planet? But is anything too hard for Lord?

The icon of the Harrowing of Hell tells us that there are no limits to God’s ability to search us out and to know us. Where are the depths of my heart and my soul, where darkness prevails, where I feel even Christ can find no welcome? Those crevices even I am afraid to think about, let alone contemplate, may be beyond my reach. I cannot produce or manufacture my own salvation from that deep, interior hell, hidden from others, and often hidden from myself.

But Christ breaks down the gates of Hell. He rips all of sinful humanity from the clutches of death. He descends into the depths of our sin and alienation from God. Plummeting the depths of Hell, he suffuses all that is lost and sinful with the radiance of divine goodness, joy and light.

Hell is where God is not; Christ is God, and his decent into Hell pushes back Hell’s boundaries. In his descent into Hell, Christ reclaims this zone for life, pushing back the gates of death, where God is not, to the farthest limits possible. Christ plummets even those deepest depths, and his love and mercy can raise us again to new life.

This evening, we think again of Christ in the grave, and ask him to take away all that denies life in us, whether it is a hell of our own making, a hell that has been forced on us, or a hell that surrounds us. Christ reaches down, and lifts us up with him in his Risen Glory.

All Souls’ Day remembers with prayerful thanks the faithful departed, all those who have died with God’s grace and friendship. It has nothing to do with the ghouls and ghosts, or the hauntings of Halloween. All Souls’ Day, like All Saints’ Day, is a day to praise God for all the works he has done through his Church, his Church Militant and his Church Triumphant. It is not a day just to remember people and what they have done. It is a day to remember what God has done for his people, to celebrate that the Gates of Hell have never prevailed against the Church. For God redeems people in every generation and makes them his own.

Amen.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was preached at the Solemn Eucharist on All Souls’ Day, 2 November 2010, in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Dublin.