20"When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. 21Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. 22For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. 23How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. 24They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
25"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. 26Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. 27At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
29He told them this parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. 31Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.
32"I tell you the truth, this generation[b] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Dig Deeper
A few weeks ago my youngest son came up with a stroke a brilliance. He was eating a treat and had left the wrapper on the dining room table. I had just come in from doing some work out on the lawn on a sunny Saturday afternoon and saw not only his wrapper but also that he had created quite a mess of scattered toys, thrown pillows, and scattered shoes and socks throughout the downstairs while I was outside. His older brother was quietly sitting in the corner with some headphones on while working on his homework for the weekend on the computer. I told him that I had to run a quick errand but I expected everything to be put back into place by the time I returned. I then left for my errand fully expecting that he would comply with my orders while I was away. Much to my chagrin, however, I discovered upon my return that he had chosen to not pick up one thing. When I asked him why he had not picked up anything his response was sheer genius. He looked at me with all the sincerity that he could muster up in his little face and said that he thought I was talking to his brother. He would have picked everything up just as I had wanted, he claimed, if he had only known that I was talking to him and not his older brother. Of course to follow his line of reasoning you would have to ignore many facts, like the fact that everything laying around the house was his, I had not even been speaking to his brother, and of course, that his brother had headphones on. It was a nice try but he still had to clean up and had now added some extra punishment onto himself for not obeying.
When we read passages like this, they can quite admittedly be difficult to discern and understand. It is full of figures of speech and imagery that is just not very familiar to us who are separated by thousands of years and a huge cultural gap. Figures of speech and language of imagery and metaphor can be the most difficult things for people of other languages or cultures to understand because you cannot simply translate a figure of speech from one language into another. If I say that I was “flying down the road,” simply translating that into another language would do little good unless you understood that this was a figure of speech meaning I was driving fast. The key, then, to understanding such passages is to start with things that are familiar or obvious and let that dictate the more difficult portions. This passage, thankfully, has some clear markers that help us to understand what this passage is all about. Things like “Jerusalem being surrounded by armies,” Jesus telling his disciples that at that time they should “lift up your heads,” that they would know that when certain things happened that the kingdom of God was near, and that “this generation” would not pass away until these things happened, all let us know that, despite how end-of-the-world some of the language and imagery sound, Jesus was clearly talking about things that would happen in the lifetime of many who were standing there listening to Jesus.
Those who wish to interpret this passage as being about the time of the resurrection and the end of the present age are left to claim that Jesus imperceptibly and quite confusingly jumps back and forth between prophesying about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and speaking of his yet-to-come return at the time of the resurrection. They even go so far as to claim that “this generation” refers to a generation that is yet to come. To imagine, however, that Jesus was looking at those men and women two thousand years ago and telling them that “this generation would see all of these things, but was not actually referring to them but to some other future generation is about as logical as my son claiming that he thought I wasn’t talking to him. The judgment and national calamity that was going to come upon Israel for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah and the time of God’s visitation is certainly a metaphor and a foreshadowing, in many ways, of the ultimate and final judgment that will accompany the king when he returns to claim his people as his own and usher in the age to come, but we simply cannot force that interpretation into Jesus’ words here. The events that he was prophesying over would happen to the generation that had rejected him.
Verses 20-24 fall in that category of fairly safe ground to interpret. When they, meaning the people who were standing there listening to Jesus, saw Jerusalem being surrounded by armies they would know that the time of Jerusalem’s being left as a desolate house (Lk. 13:35; see also Isaiah 5:9; 24:1-10) was very near. Jesus didn’t specifically say that these armies would be Roman but that was certainly a fairly obvious guess for anyone in the first century. If Jerusalem was going to be surrounded by enemy forces they would almost surely be Roman, and that is exactly what happened in 70 AD (nearly forty years, or the typical biblical span of a “generation” after Jesus spoke this prophecy) as Roman forces led by Titus came and surrounded the city of Jerusalem. For disciples who were still in Judea and the area surrounding Jerusalem this would be no time for some sudden pangs of nationalistic fervor or misplaced loyalties. When the armies came they needed to get out quickly (the pieces of evidence that we do have indicate that the Christians in Jerusalem at this time did exactly that and fled before the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem). No one in Jerusalem would be safe when the calamity finally struck, warned Jesus. Even those that would normally be protected like pregnant and nursing mothers would be in great peril and even be killed. Jerusalem would surely be trampled as God allowed the Gentile armies of Rome to fulfill their time and purpose as God’s instrument of judgment for his people that rejected him.
In the next group of verses from 25-28, we find ourselves on much more unfamiliar ground. We shouldn’t just jump to the conclusion, however, that these figures of speech need to be understood woodenly literal any more than it would help to insist, in the example above, that I had sprouted wings and could actually fly. It was rather common imagery at the time that this was written to describe great moments of national and political upheaval in terms of celestial signs and monumental cataclysmic events, not unlike we might call a major event “earth shattering.” Even a quick survey of the latter half of the late 60’s up through 70 AD would show that just such nerve-wracking upheavals were happening throughout the Roman Empire. The relative peace and comfort of the Roman world seemed on the verge of collapse after Nero’s suicide in 68 AD as a litany of emperors came in the next few years and civil war was constantly a very real possibility. At the same time, the relations between Rome and Jerusalem had basically disintegrated and by 70 AD war with Rome was looming for Jerusalem.
With all of this unrest swirling about, that would be when they would “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (again, the group of people that he was talking to was certainly included into that “they will see”). As much as we might like to infuse the coming of the Son of Man in a cloud talk with thoughts of the return of Christ at the time of the resurrection, it’s just very unlikely that this is what is in view here. Not the least of the reasons that this was not what Jesus was referring to in the overall context of this passage and in the Gospel of Luke as a whole. This is where we must let the clear referents in passages like this help guide us through the shadows.
References to the Son of Man come from the great prophecy of Daniel 7, an extremely important and popular passage in the first century that was written, so the Jews of Jesus’ day as well as the early Christians believed, concerning the time when God’s Messiah and his family would be vindicated after suffering at the hand of those opposed to God. The coming in the clouds was familiar Old Testament language used when God came in judgment against those opposed to him (see Ex. 34:5; Isa. 19:1; Ps. 18:11; 19:1; 104:3; Joel 2:2; Zephaniah 1:15). So, the picture of the Son of Man coming in the clouds is a different event than the promised physical and visible return of Christ (Acts 1:11) that we know today as the “Second Coming”. Luke certainly believed that that was a reality to look forward to but that’s just not primarily what Jesus was talking about here (although certainly the exaltation and vindication of the Son of Man was a foreshadowing and a guarantee of his final return and judgment of the entire world). Jesus was connecting with familiar imagery to to make clear that when he came in judgment, his people would be vindicated as the true people of God. The surprising thing for the people of Israel that continued to reject the Messiah was that they would be the ones that would be treated as the enemies of God. When Jerusalem was besieged and the Temple in ruins, God’s true people would be shown for who they were. The Son of Man’s coming in judgment would show clearly that he was sitting at the right hand of the Lord with his enemies as a footstool (Lk. 20:42-43).
Just as they could look at fig trees and see the signs that summer is near, so they would be able to take Jesus’ words to heart and know that when they saw the signs of Jerusalem being besieged and great turmoil in the known world, they would know that this was no accident. They had nothing to fear. This is precisely what Jesus predicted would happen. This was what must happen in order for God’s Messiah to be finally vindicated over and against the people that rejected him and for God’s true family to be revealed.
As we enter into verses 32-33 we find mixed ground once again. Verse 32 is rather solid and obvious, while, for us, verse 33 can be a bit difficult because it is another Jewish figure of speech. “This generation,” the one that Jesus was speaking to would see these things. That places these events squarely in the first century and shows that attempts by some commentators to apply “this generation” to some some random generation that is still in the future just do not hold water. As mentioned in the previous passage, Jesus was consistently and crystal clear that the generation that rejected him would be the one to feel the judgment for their actions (see Matt. 11:16; 12:41-42; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 11:30-32, 50-51: 17:25; 21:32). The generation that rejected the Messiah would be the one to see him coming on the clouds in judgment. That much could be taken to the bank.
Just as my last sentence was a figure of speech that cannot be taken literally, so was the promise that “heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.” It probably meant something along the lines of the figure of speech I used about the bank. It would be easier and sooner happen, implied Jesus, that the present age of heaven and earth pass into the age to come than it would be for his words to not be correct. It should not be missed, then, that Jesus was basically equating his own words with the authority and permanence of the words of God. He was likely playing off of a common rabbinic saying at the time that used a similar figure of speech: “Everything has its end, the heavens and earth have their end; only one thing is expected which has no end, and that is the Law of God.”
All of the things that Jesus was warning of would come on the generation of the vineyard’s tenants that had rejected and killed the son, because once the son came, there would be no other messengers. Yet we should not suppose that this passage has nothing of importance for us. We might not have been part of “that” generation but we do live in a time when people regularly reject the Messiah and his kingdom. It is our calling to boldly warn them, just as Jesus warned his generation of the disaster that will surely come upon those who reject the king. But it is also part of our calling to show the world a living image of what it will look like to live in God’s future age and to call all humans to be reconciled to God and to be part of his promised family.
Devotional Thought
Jesus warned that rejecting him would lead to disaster for the nation of Israel. The Bible is clear that rejecting Christ’s offer of salvation is equally disastrous for all humans. Are you as bold about declaring the danger of rejecting Christ as Jesus and his first disciples were? Who do you need to gently but firmly warn today of the disastrous consequences of continuing to live out their rejection of God’s Messiah?
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