LUCAS 17:26-37 says: "The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God was to come. He answered, The kingdom of God is not like something you can observe, and say of it, 'Look, here it is! Or ‘see. There it is!’ for the kingdom of God is within you.'"
And Jesus said to his disciples, long to see one of the glorious days see it. Then people will tell you, "Look there ! Look here!" Do not go with them. As lightening flashes from one end of the sky to the other, so will it be with the Son of Man; but first he must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation.
As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be on the day the Son of Man comes. In those days people ate and drank and get married; but on the day Noah entered the ark, the fllod came and destroyed them all.
So it was in the days of Lot: people ate and drank, and bought and sold, and planted and built; but on the day Lot left Sodom, God made fire and sulfur ran down from heaven, which destroyed them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
When will the kingdom of God come? It does not come as a revolution or the change of the seasons each year: it is at work in people who have received the Good News. Those who believe already enjoy the kingdom.
Then come the words of Jesus concerning the end of Jerusalem and his second coming (Mk 13:14). We should not speak about the end of the world in every time of anxiety. Jesus gives us two comparisons: the lightening (v.24) which gather without fail wherever there is fail, will be aware of Christ’s return.
Yet his return will catch off guard those who are not expecting it (just as in the days of Noah). Judgment will separate the elect from the condemned – nothing separated them in daily life – from two people working side by side, one will be taken, the other left behind.
In Mathew 24:17 the reference to someone outside his house is connected with the end of Jerusalem, and here it means it will necessary to escape quickly In the present text this has another meaning: when the end of the world comes it will be too late to worry about saving one’s life or possessions.
When will this take place? (v. 37): foolish question as in Luke 17:20, because the Lord will not come to take his people to a geographic location. On that day, the good will be taken into the presence of God as infallibly as vultures gather around a corpse.
Last Nov. 17 was the feast of Santa Isabel sa Hungaria. I commemorate her here in my column.
(for your comment email: nolvanvugt@gmail.com)