This week, we continue our study of Luke’s Gospel with Luke 21:1-22:38. Luke 21 is often referred to as the “Little Apocalypse,” a passage that Luke borrows from Mark 13. Last week, one of the Substack contributors that I follow, Addison Hodges Hart, published his insights on Mark’s Little Apocalypse. (He is the brother of David Bentley Hart, whom I will often quote.) His is entitled “Apocalypse Now“. In the article, he discusses apocalypticism in its contemporary context and Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet. His specific discussion of the Scripture passage is reproduced below. I am out of town from this afternoon through Sunday, so I am using Mr. Hart as my guest email contributor. If you like the article, consider subscribing to his Substack and following him on Facebook.
On Tuesday, dinner is at 6. The menu is Olive Garden-inspired soup, salad, and breadsticks. Discussion about 6:45. Compline at 8. Hope to see you here.
As excerpt from the Substack:
I offer a succinct (and truncated) answer to that question by turning to what has been called the “little apocalypse” of Jesus. It is recounted with variants in Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21. Since Mark’s version is considered the earliest by scholars – a position I neither dispute nor defend but merely accept for brevity’s sake – I will confine my comments to Mark 13. Incidentally, I don’t hold the opinion that the “little apocalypse” was composed by someone else and put in the mouth of Jesus after the fall of Jerusalem in 71 A.D. I see no reason to doubt that Jesus indeed prophesied of coming events when he was approached by inquiring disciples. The variants between the three versions of the discourse in the Synoptic Gospels reflect, as always, the perspectives of the Gospels’ respective authors; nevertheless, with little difficulty, all three versions can be believed to stem from original sayings of Jesus. Looking at Mark 13, then, I wish to draw out of that chapter something Jesus stresses repeatedly. In fact, I believe that this emphasis is the real heart of the discourse, its most essential takeaway.
One of the disciples has expressed wonder at the magnificence of Herod’s Temple, to which Jesus replies, “Do you see these great buildings? By no means shall there be a stone left upon a stone that will not be cast down” (vs. 2). Peter, James, and John then ask him (vs. 4), “Tell us: When will these things be? And, when all these things are about to be completed [συντελεῖσθαι], what will be the sign?” Jesus’ direct answer to their query about when these things will occur doesn’t come until twenty-eight verses later, after he has first provided them with a list of dire details describing what will take place before the End. He includes a summary of “signs” that will precede the consummation. Some of those distressing signs could, frankly, apply to almost any given age, so general are they (I have often suspected that these ambiguously rich details were intended to lend themselves to a broad application). Not until verse 32 does he address the pressing matter the disciples had asked about, that of when: “But, as for the day and hour, no one knows – neither the angels in heaven nor the Son – except the Father” (emphasis added). Luke leaves this statement, with its inherent uncertainty, out of his version, and only some ancient manuscripts of Matthew include it. But the real emphasis of Jesus’ words is placed, not on what or when, but on how his followers are to live in a world of chaos and continual threat, a world in which “the end” is always imminent. (Matthew expands this aspect of Jesus’ prophesying with the parables that follow the “little apocalypse” in Chapters 24 and 25, all of them concerned with his disciples’ moral and spiritual preparedness, and culminating in the Parable of the Last Judgment in 25:31 – 46.)
The most significant words throughout the “little apocalypse,” however, are not related to any coming outward events. Rather, they apply to the inner state of his disciples. The words are: βλέπω (blepo = “watch” or “take heed”), γρηγορέω (gregoreo = “awake”; “alert”; “on watch”), and ἀγρυπνία (agrupnia = “sleepless”). We find them in the following handful of verses:
Verse 5: “Keep watch [βλέπετε], so that no one causes you to go astray.”
Verse 9: “But you, look [βλέπετε] to yourselves.”
Verse 23: “But keep watch [βλέπετε]…”
Verse 33: “Keep watch [βλέπετε], be alert [ἀγρυπνεῖτε = “be sleepless”] [, and pray]: For you do not know when it is the season…”
Verses 35 – 37: “Be vigilant [γρηγορεῖτε], therefore – for you do not know when the Lord of the household comes, whether at evening or at midnight or at cockcrow or in the morning – so that, arriving suddenly, he does not find you sleeping. And what I say to you I say to all: Be vigilant [γρηγορεῖτε].”
The rest of the chapter rests on these seven verses. They constitute the heart of Jesus’ “little apocalypse.” And — note — they are addressed to our interior preparation, regardless of the turmoil we see surrounding us in the world, despite even the threats of violence and persecution and natural disaster.
In Christianity, the reality of death is never avoided as a topic; quite the reverse: we are urged to contemplate it daily and – in our traditional night prayers – we are made to reflect on it just before sleep. Death may come to us peacefully or violently, in pain or without it – but death is a certainty, even when details about “the End” of all things are kept ambiguous and anything but certain. In the face of the End or, at least, of our own end, we are expected to be prepared — ready. So it is that, throughout the New Testament and the Church’s tradition, we have a continuous call set before us to purify our hearts, minds, and souls, and to live peaceably, soberly, and charitably towards all (especially to those in need – Matthew 25:31 – 46 again). We are constantly being reminded to be prepared for “the Apocalypse” – the unveiled Reality that will meet us on the other side of each of our deaths (unless, of course, the End of everything comes first).
And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he is made manifest we may have confidence, and not driven from him by shame at his arrival. . . We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him makes himself pure, just as that one is pure. 1 John 2:28; 3:2–3.