A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. People were speaking of how the temple temple was adorned with precious stones and avotive offerings. It was a magnificent edifice. Of course, Herod had a lot to do with rebuilding that. And then Jesus said, these things you are looking at, the day will come when not a stone will be left upon a stone, but it will all be torn down, destroyed.
They asked Jesus, when will all of this take place? And what will be the sign that it is going to happen? Jesus replied, take care not to be misled. Many will come in my name saying, I am he. The time is at hand.
Do not follow them, neither must you be perturbed when you hear of wars and insurrections. These things are bound to happen, but the end does not come immediately. And then Jesus said further, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, plagues, famines in various places, and in the sky, fearful omens and great signs. And this is the gospel lord.
Praise to you, lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Of course, these texts are being chosen because they have significance for two things, you might say, for two considerations. First, the ending of the liturgical year.
We're in the last year of it. This coming Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent. And also, more than a suggestion more than a suggestion about the end of the world or the end of something. Now, this text, and this is one of the more important ones, having to do with what we call the end of things, eschatological, is extremely significant. And the way it's interpreted has been various down the ages.
There's never been a century that someone hasn't inaugurated a movement that to encourage people to think that the end of the world was coming, and they better get ready for it. And it's happened all the way down. Every century has had it, I think. Anyway, it's been a very commonplace idea because depending on how you look at the world and what you highlight, what you emphasize, you can come up with all kinds of interpretations. Remember, a a book is only words.
Just words, signs. And it it takes a mind to interpret them. And the kind of interpretation you get can be very different. But there is one very significant thing here that I that is beyond interpretation. That is a simple indisputable fact.
That within twenty five years of our lord's death, the Romans under Titus came in and destroyed the temple of Jerusalem until there was not left a of the temple, not a stone upon a stone. And you can verify it any of you who've been over in Jerusalem. On the top of the mountain, Zion, where the temple stood in all its glory in our lord's it wasn't quite finished in our lord's time. It must have been a perfectly magnificent building. Where that stood, there is now a huge open area with two mosques.
Two, not just one, but two. And it rates with the Mohammed the the Muslim world only in second place. It's second only to Mecca. Now people will tell you, well, of course, there's a stone left upon the stone. Look at the wall over there.
The wall was not the temple. You see, when if any of you have been there, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. In order to in order to extend the level top of the hill or mountain, in order to make the temple area bigger, they had to make the the plateau up there bigger. So they had a erect immense stone wall that that goes up, I don't know how many feet, in order to hold up the the side of the mountain, in order to enlarge the top of it, the temple area. Those stones still are there.
That is the weeping wall. That's where you go, and you will see faithful Jews coming and putting little notes in the crevices of the wall, their prayers. And then underneath it, have a a a big synagogue that is tunneled under there. You have a big synagogue, a huge synagogue. Now, our lord's prophecy prophecy came true down to the slightest iota, the smallest iota, that that this magnificent structure, within years of our Lord's death, was destroyed, and it has never been rebuilt.
There have been two or three attempts to rebuild it, but they didn't amount to anything, nothing. There's been no serious effort, No serious effort whatsoever to rebuild the Temple Of Jerusalem. And from the day that Titus destroyed that temple, there has been no sacrifice, there's been no active priesthood in the Jewish religion. In the Jewish religion, there is no temple today. Now you'll see this word used around, but that's not a they're synagogues.
They're synagogues. They are not temple. There is no sacrifice. There is no functioning priesthood that is offering sacrifice. It just doesn't exist.
And even though the Jews occupy that remember Jerusalem's on the West Bank. And even though they have occupied Jerusalem for years, there's not been the slightest effort to kick out the Muslims or to recover the Jew or they could to recover the temple area, not the slightest. They wouldn't dare do it. As I say, mosque on the top there where the temple used to stand, and now and there are two of them up there, it rates in the mosque and words second only to Mecca. Only to Mecca.
And you know what Mecca means. And so this is not something to take pride in, but this is something our lord predicted, and it happened beyond all dispute. There is no argument about it. That this huge that you couldn't imagine it being destroyed. And there it was destroyed.
There was not a stone left upon a stone. And that was the end, as I say, of the of the official sacrificing priesthood. It's never been revived. There's been no attempt to revive it, which puzzles me no end. Now our blessed lord is telling us something.
For our salvation, keep this in mind. That's our only purpose in life. Of course, that when you say that, you feel that you're just hearing an echo. But the thing is that is putting it as simply as we can put it. We have one purpose in life, and that's salvation.
Everything else is second. I mean, everything else. This is where difficulty comes to realize this, that everything else is secondary. But when I say secondary, I wanna hasten to add immediately that while it is all secondary, it is all very much part, part of our salvation. You do not work out your salvation in a vacuum.
You are men and women of this world, and you must use this world for your salvation. Notice, for your salvation. Not to be lost in the things of this world, not to let your slaves become your masters, not to let what what should be serving you captivate you. And this can happen so easily, so easily. And I would say almost inevitably.
I know I repeat myself, but I can't say this too often. It's almost inevitable that we lose ourselves from time to time in the things of this world. Because the very the very fact fact that I push myself to work to my salvation and to use the things of this life for my salvation, that very fact encourages me to be lost in them. To be lost in them. But I can't afford it.
That is one thing I cannot afford to do, to let my slaves become my master. To let those all these beautiful, magnificent, wonderful things, and a lot of things which aren't so wonderful. All the tragedies, the sorrows, the sadnesses, the griefs, the disappointments, the failures. Remember, all of this is the stuff of our salvation. The stuff of our salvation, not the stuff of despair and hopelessness.
It can so easily become that. These things can so easily press us down. And let me tell you, I say this with utmost honesty. In what I have seen of life, I have seen more lives destroyed by success than I have by failure. More lives lost because of the good things of life rather than its tragedies.
Rather than its tragedies. And I've seen a few, and so have you. So it's not just the tragedies of life that are that lay in wait to destroy me, oh no. The very successes of life can destroy me, and they often do. Because they contribute to my pride, to my self confidence, to my irresponsibility, and to my forgetting what I'm here for.
So it happens. And so these messages that the church is bringing to us from our blessed lord himself, take it seriously in your own life. It doesn't mean that there's always there's gonna be a great big change, but there should be a little change. There should be a reawakening, a a a clearer realization in our daily living. What is it all about?
I don't care what you're doing or what phase of life, or or or how you make your living, or how you don't make your living. It's this stuff that's going to spell out your salvation. It's that simple. And unless we realize it, what chance are we of using it properly? And that's what we should do.
We must use God's creatures in order that we may praise him. And in the course of doing that, work out our own personal salvation. If we don't succeed in that, everything is lost. On the other hand, if we do succeed in that, everything, everything that matters, that really matters is gained, and this through the grace of our lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.