All that you see here -- the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.
When people in the United States die unexpectedly, their families must to take care of whatever unfinished business they left. Their survivors often find their homes and apartments filled with furniture, clothes, appliances, lawn equipment, sports equipment, luggage, and innumerable mementos and keepsakes. Much has been stored in boxes in the garage, attic, or spare room for decades. And none of it means anything to the survivors. They have neither time, nor interest, nor emotional energy to clean out the emptied homes.
An industry has appeared in major cities and most smaller ones; scavengers who will, for a fee, haul all of that stuff away. Some of it will be resold, most of it goes to the landfill. And there it will remain forever.
"Not one stone is left upon a stone, but it will all be torn down." Jesus's prediction about the Jerusalem temple -- which had been recently rebuilt by King Herod -- was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Roman army razed the shrine and leveled the city. All that remains is the Wailing Wall near a Muslim mosque.
We human being need our stuff. We cannot live without buildings, clothing, food stocks, and the infrastructures we have been building for more than ten thousand years. But we also build walls of accumulated stuff to hide the truth, that "Not one stone will be left upon a stone."
By all accounts Jesus owned little or nothing. Saint Matthew mentions a home in Capernaum, but does not say whether he owned the building or it belonged to his family. Jesus followed the traditional peripatetic route of wandering rabbis and philosophers until he "set his face" for Jerusalem and his fated end. There he died naked on a cross, as he had told one applicant disciple, "foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
On the cross, he fulfilled the prophecy of Job, and the curriculum vitae of every human being,
Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb,
and naked shall I go back there.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
blessed be the name of the LORD!”
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.