Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Lenten Reading for Tuesday, Fifth Week of Lent
Today's reading comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 23, verses 27-32:
A large crowd of people followed Jesus, including many women who mourned and lamented him. Jesus turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.' At that time people will say to the mountains, 'Fall on us!' and to the hills, 'Cover us!' for if these things are done when the wood is green what will happen when it is dry?" Now tow others, both criminals, were led away with him to be executed.Many people in the apocalyptic Christian movement consider this speech of Jesus' to be a foreshadowing of the coming "Day of Judgement." While I do not deny that Jesus is doing some soothsaying here, I think his foresight was looking more into the near future. Jesus is foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in 70 CE. This was a time of great suffering for the Jewish people. Some biblical scholars even consider the Revelation of St. John to be a telling of the destruction of Jerusalem, rather than a tale of the end of the created Earth.
