Take Heart! SALT's Commentary for Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost

Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost (Year C): Luke 21:5-19 and Isaiah 65:17-25

Big Picture:

1) This week’s Gospel reading is the second-to-last week of a year-long walk through the Gospel of Luke. When Advent starts on November 30, we’ll begin a year-long pilgrimage through the Gospel of Matthew.

2) As Luke tells it, this week’s passage is the beginning of Jesus’ final sermon before the Last Supper. The powers-that-be are closing in for the kill — and Jesus knows it (Luke 19:47; 20:9-19). No doubt the disciples know it, too; the atmosphere is charged with anxiety and dread. But as the rest of the story makes clear, the disciples are holding out for some kind of triumphant deliverance, not a shameful defeat like crucifixion. They’re expecting — hoping! — that Jesus, precisely as the long-awaited Messiah, will now act with power and glory, one way or another vanquishing the Roman occupiers and the death-dealing powers they represent. But Jesus has something else in mind…

3) This week’s passage from Isaiah is one of the most soaring and beautiful in all of the Bible’s library, words of encouragement for Israelites exiled in Babylon, promising what amounts to a New Exodus, similar to the original exodus from Egypt, but now with a scope that’s nothing less than cosmic: new heavens, and a new earth! (For more from Isaiah on the idea of a New Exodus, see Isaiah 35:1-10; 48:20-21; 52:7-12.)

4) Jesus has been teaching in the temple, delighting the crowds and outmaneuvering adversaries (see last week, for example). Immediately before this week’s passage, he draws a striking contrast: on one side, members of the elite establishment, including religious leaders who “say long prayers” and “devour widows’ houses” (such leaders sometimes became legal trustees of widows’ estates) and rich people who donate large sums “out of their abundance”; and on the other side, an impoverished widow, herself exploited, perhaps, who nevertheless contributes “two small copper coins” to the temple treasury (Luke 20:45 - 21:4). It’s this destitute woman, Jesus declares, who outshines the phony generosity of the rich. It’s as if Jesus says: Beware! You see these great prayers, these great sums — they’re actually bankrupt!  And then, as this week’s passage begins: You see these great stones, these great buildings? They’re coming down! 

Scripture:

1) The disciples are hoping for messianic deliverance — and they’re going to get it, but not in the form they have in mind. God is changing the game, Jesus insists, turning the world upside down, so don’t expect a conventional victory. I came not to conquer the world, but to save it. You see those men in fine robes, the rich and powerful? They’re outdone by that poor widow — the same woman they oppress and ignore! And likewise, you see these great buildings, adorned with beautiful stones? The grass withers, the flower fades (Isaiah 40:8). The old hierarchies of the world, and the old certainties, too, will crumble and fall. God is making something new!

2) The Gospel of Luke was likely written not long after the Romans put down a major Jewish rebellion (perhaps two or three decades later), devastating the Jerusalem temple in the process. And according to the Book of Acts (also written by Luke), early Christian communities intermittently experienced hostility, arrest, persecution, imprisonment, and even execution. In this week’s passage, by foretelling these traumatic events, Jesus effectively reframes them in the context of God’s world-turning, world-transforming work, as “signs” that “your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:11,28).

3) Think of it this way: Luke begins his Gospel with Mary singing that God’s mission is to “lift up the lowly,” “scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts,” and “bring down the powerful from their thrones” (Luke 1:51-52). And now, in Jesus’ last sermon, we confront the difficult truth that this world-turning work will involve struggle and loss, trials and adversity. Jesus’ passion is about to begin. The path to new life leads through “the place that is called The Skull” (Luke 23:33).

4) But it doesn’t end there! The same path continues on beyond the cross to the empty tomb, the dawn of a new chapter in salvation history. Despite the coming trials — or indeed precisely in the midst of them, now reframed not as setbacks but as “signs” of redemption’s approach — we should remain encouraged, trusting that Mary’s song is unfolding all around us, a new creation being born. “Not a hair on your head will perish,” Jesus declares (Luke 21:18). And if we’re called upon to testify, “I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand” (Luke 21:15).

5) Isaiah’s soaring poetry holds out the vision toward which we travel, the light at the end of the Via Dolorosa (“Way of Sorrows”). God is creating Jerusalem “as a joy, / and its people as a delight… no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, / or the cry of distress” (Isaiah 65:18-19). Indeed, each divine promise in this litany implicitly acknowledges the hardship that precedes it: for example, the promise, “They shall not build and another inhabit” evokes the trauma of being forced from your home; “the lion shall eat straw like the ox” evokes the threats posed by predators, feline or human (Isaiah 65:22,25). But fear not, God says.The former things shall pass away (Isaiah 65:17). 

6) And since the key verb in verses 17 and 18 — bara’ (“create”) — is in a participial form (“creating”), Isaiah suggests that God’s work in this regard is already underway: I am creating new heavens and a new earth...

Takeaways:

1) For many people, Jesus’ apocalyptic imagery in this sermon can seem foreign, cryptic, or even repugnant — but connecting this passage with its three primary contexts can help bring it alive. First, the context of Luke’s story: standing on the precipice of the passion, Jesus and his followers are about to enter a harrowing gauntlet of betrayal, suffering, shame, and death. Accordingly, in this last sermon before the Passover, Jesus proclaims: Take heart — we shall not perish! 

2) Second, the context of Luke’s community: early Christians faced intermittent persecution, including hostility, arrest, imprisonment, and execution — and so again, Jesus proclaims: Take heart — we shall not perish! 

3) And third, our context today: human lives are full of struggle, including betrayal, shame, suffering, death, hostility, arrest, imprisonment, execution — and each one of these trials, whether actual or figurative, can tempt us to despair. And so Jesus proclaims: Take heart — we shall not perish! 

4) Indeed, the very thing that might initially seem outlandish about this passage — the vivid, brutal, and (later in the sermon) phantasmagorical intensity of these apocalyptic images — is precisely what helps ensure that it resounds as good news for those who need it most. It’s as if Jesus says, No matter what adversity you face, no matter how many formidable obstacles, no matter how hopeless things may seem, God will make a way out of no way — not merely “winning” the game but changing the game entirely, remaking heaven and earth, turning the world upside down, or rather, right-side up! Take heart!

5) After all, what good is a gospel that can’t be proclaimed on the desolate ground of betrayal, shame, suffering, death, hostility, arrest, imprisonment, execution — in short, in precisely those places where all seems lost? The good news this week is that even and especially in those places, God is at work, creating new heavens and a new earth. Even the cross, the icon of the worst humanity can do, the ultimate dead end — gives way to divine grace, a path of new life, and finally what the prophet calls God’s “delight” (Isaiah 65:19). Mary sings beautifully, of course, but she learned her song from her ancestors — our ancestors — who have been singing for centuries: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).