We are almost at the end of the liturgical year. It appears as if Jesus announces some terrible events. When Mark writes this page of his Gospel, the Roman empire is ravaged by wars, plagues, calamities, and famines. The Christian communities are affected by the persecution and killings. The critical situation ignites the imagination of some fanatics who began to spread forecasts of an imminent catastrophe, the end of all creation, and the return of Christ on the clouds of heaven.
The evangelist feels he must intervene to help Christians put the events in the proper perspective. If not careful with our readings, we could be deceived and misinterpret the events of the story and make foolish decisions. The consequence of this misreading is that we lose hope.
In fact, Jesus was not making some new predictions in the Gospel. He was simply presenting what was happening in his time, what would happen in the time of Nero, what happens all the time and even today.
Jesus invites us to read our history in another way. He says that this will be the beginning of sorrows. What sorrows is he talking about? They are the birth pains, birth of a new world; not signs of death. During the last supper, Jesus had used this image of the woman in childbirth. She would forget all her pains when she has the joy of having her child. The pains of the world are the beginning of the birth of a new world.
Jesus uses an apocalyptic language, of course taken from the book of Prophet Isaiah. In chapters 13 and 34, Isaiah says that the stars of heaven and the constellation Orion will no longer give their light; the sun shall be darkened at its rising, and the moon shall not give its light; all the host of heaven shall be dissolved. Many run into the mistake of interpreting the words of Jesus in the literal sense and thus we have numerous movies talking about the dooms day or the end of the world.
Jesus means that with the destruction of Jerusalem a whole new world will begin. With the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel, these gods that had seduced humankind will be destroyed. Gods that justified slavery, moral corruption, and oppression of the peoples – all these stars are finished; they will lose their splendour. Where the light of the Gospel enters, all else will be darkened. All the rulers, from the Pharaoh to the Mesopotamian emperors, the kings… they all thought they were stars in the sky. Jesus says all these stars now fall; these stars must not be in heaven; they are not divinities.
Jesus is giving an announcement of the joy; it is anything but catastrophic; it is the announcement of an earthquake that will overthrow all the kingdoms of injustice and lies, of hypocrisy and powers that starve the people.
For your reflection:
Name the false stars of the world that that seduce and cheat so many people with their false promises of success? Are money, possessions and the accumulation of power achieved by any means, trampling on everyone the stars that you revere and honour?
Father Fernando Torres CMF
www.ciudadredonda.org
Translated by Father Alberto Rossa CMF
