Today’s Gospel sounds sad and frightening, especially when you try to understand it in a literal way. As all writers or story tellers, Luke had his own way to write and communicate a message. He used a linguistic style using symbolic words and phrases to give more sense to what he was saying. In his time, this style called apocalyptic, was quite common or widespread in antiquity having started during the period of post-exilic Judaism. It aims to reveal that the end of history and human civilization will happen in the future following existential catastrophes. As a revelation, it often combines visions and dreams, reality and fantasy (cf Lk 21: 10-13). For Luke, this end would be an accomplishment and it would be accomplished in Jesus Christ.

This linguistic style, I think, is not a pure invention emerging from imagination but out of reality and experience. It describes a fact in a particular way using enigmatic symbols leading facts and their meaning. For example, one can talk about a pregnant woman as a woman who has a double body. “Double body” is a linguistic style not to show us that the woman has really a double body, but to show us that she is in pregnancy. “Double body” functions as clue to “pregnancy” as a fact.

For Christians at Luke’s time, the Kingdom of God was a fact. It was not easily acceptable at that time. So Luke tried to find an effective way to make his readers understand that the Kingdom of God was Jesus himself. However, we must take into account that Luke used not only the literature means but also his faith to communicate the Good News of Jesus. In his time as there had been before, there were natural and man-made calamities such as wars, insurrections, and epidemics , etc..In such period, there were those who wanted to be “savior”. In our today’s society, we find it quite normal as we find in many political campaigns. Every candidate could say “I am the solution”, “Change”, and many others kind of political slogans. On Luke’s time, there were also those who pretended to be “Messiah”, new leader and savior for the people.

Luke didn’t take for granted these earthly or worldly phenomena. He took them into account and tried to understand them in the light of Jesus’ words. Such events reminded him of what Jesus lamented and criticized when he saw the teachers of law and the Sadducees admired the temple. This admiration embodies a kind of belief of human power or earthly power, an opposition direct to God. By criticizing them, Jesus put into question the hypocrisy and the lack of consistency on the part of religious leaders. Jesus reminded “See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying ‘I’am He’ and ‘the time has come’, but don’t follow them”(Lk:21, 8). For Luke, Jesus’ words could be interpreted in any moment of history as he tried to interpret it in the period of the destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70s AD.

Luke tried also to understand all sufferings in the light of his faith in Jesus.  Such calamities didn’t come from God. They caused sufferings and could make him and Christians turn their eyes from Jesus and seek a new shelter in many others idols pretending to be capable of saving them. There have been, there are always and there will be certainly the natural and man-made calamities in our history. But there is a veritable war. It is in our heart. Once we try to follow Jesus faithfully everyday, we truly have a war in our heart; we feel being persecuted by our own ego. Jesus has reminded that he didn’t come to give us peace but to burn a fire.  Jesus is asking you and me about our own idols in our today’s life. I’m thinking of our electronics devices that could be another “Messiah” in our life. We indulge in using them for anything we need and then hinder us from enjoying many precious moments with God in prayer, with our families or with our friends during lunch, dinner and other intimate moments of the family. We are so busy with our electronics devices that we don’t pay more attention to others when they are together with us. This war is inside you. If you are capable of winning it, you can also win another war outside you; you are capable to face all other sufferings in our present world since you want to love Jesus faithfully. (Reynaldo, s.x.)