Beware of the False Prophets - Today's Bible Verse Explained / Homily - Saint Luke 21:5-11

By Tony Joe:

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 21:5-11

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said,

"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."

Then they asked him, "Teacher, when will this happen? And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?"

He answered, "See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he,' and 'The time has come.' Do not follow them!

When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for such things must happen first, but it will not immediately be the end."

Then he said to them, "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky."

Today's Bible Verse Explained / Homily - Saint Luke 21:5-11

In today's Bible verse, we witness Jesus warning about the coming of many false prophets, after His time on earth.

Christ was prophesying about the upcoming destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, and His disciples wanted to know when that would happen. They wanted to know the signs of that event, beforehand.

But in His reply, before He speaks about the actual signs, Jesus warns about another more dangerous phenomenon that would happen - the advent of many false prophets.

To recognize them easily, so as not to be deceived by them, Christ also foretells about what would be the strategies of these false prophets.

One strategy to be expected from false prophets is the announcement, "The time has come." In other words, beware, the world is now coming to an end.

Of course, in history, as well as now, we have seen this false prophecy playing out innumerable times.

Everyone from ancient impostors, to new age gurus, and all fraudulent prophets in between, have constantly harped on this singular theme - "The time has come" - so that some significance can be attached to the timing of their appearance in this world!

But these gurus and prophets have come and gone, and none of their predictions about the timing of this world's end have ever come true. Even worse, some of these cults ended in mass suicides or violent law enforcement actions.

However, this strategy is the lesser evil when we contemplate on it. It is self-defeating as nothing happens to the world by the predicted time. The bigger danger comes from the other strategic claim of many false prophets - "I am he."

While only a few have claimed in history to be the second coming of Christ, none of them ever gathered significant momentum to pose serious confusion to believers.

This has been so because it is so difficult to imitate Jesus, what He has accomplished in this world, and how He accomplished it. But more about it later, when we revisit this point shortly.

So, what exactly did Jesus mean by warning about the claim by false prophets that, "I am he"?

To understand this, we should get into the shoes of these false prophets, and think like them, for a moment.

Their strategy goes like this - 'If I can't ever hope to be Him, what will I do? I will simply try to reduce Him to my level!'

These false prophets will speak good of Jesus and His teachings generally, maybe with some exceptions, and subtly reject His obvious Divinity. A common ploy employed for this is arguing that Jesus meant something else when He taught something mysterious, or arguing that Christians have missed the real message of Jesus.

We have seen this strategy too playing out in history innumerable times, with all efforts being taken to reduce Jesus Christ to just another well-meaning ancient guru.

However, unlike the other strategy of harping on about the end of the world, this one is not withering away with time, but gathering in momentum.

There is a reason why this strategy is gaining strength. New age gurus who claim that that are like Jesus because Jesus is just another human guru, tries to appeal more to the contemporary world by speaking about current issues like corporate challenges, climate change, single parenting, and such things.

Little do they realize that the moral and spiritual challenges have remained the same, since the creation of the world. At a fundamental level nothing changes, even though the world calls the seemingly newer issues with newer names.

Anyway this strategy of false prophets too will fail miserably because Jesus is not just His teachings alone.

Jesus is also about the superhuman suffering He went through for the atonement of our sins. Which guru has willingly walked into such horrific suffering and intensely painful death to also prove that his teachings are true? None ever, and none will do that in the future too.

Jesus was willing to bet His whole life, take on unimaginable pain, and get crushed by torture, to prove to the world that God is His Father, He has come in God's Name, and that God can resurrect Him within hours of death! Speak of courage!

To cite yet another uniqueness of Christ, who can repeat His miracles? Not just the miracles that we see in the Gospels, but the miracles He has been doing in response to the cries of His believers, day in and day out, for over 2000 years now.

Even more important is how Jesus has inspired thousands of believers to be martyrs for the Gospel, for the faith. Right from apostles to the martyrs of today, none of them tried to escape persecution, but willingly walked into horrific deaths, humbling themselves, just like their Master.

Again and again, they have proven to the world that there is a greater life beyond world's comforts and compromises, that their Teacher proved to them first.

From St. Stephen the first martyr, to the majority of apostles who died as martyrs, to St. Paul, to early century martyrs like St. George and St. Sebastian, and through the thousands of martyrs in every Christian denomination, this willingness to die for truth lives on.

Today, we may see some suicide bombers who are willing to die for the benefit of killing hundreds of their perceived enemies, but none of them will ever walk into enemy territory willingly, humbling themselves, and ask to be killed for their faith!

Why did the Christian martyrs do it? Only because they were witness to the faith, handed over to them, through the generations. And from where did this unshakable faith originate? As St. Paul puts it, this originated from the around 500 followers of Jesus who were witnesses together to the greatest miracle in history, the resurrected Jesus.

Nothing else, or nothing smaller, than the resurrected Christ would have been enough to split the highly cohesive community, to give rise to the fast growing early Christian Church, that too against the largest organized persecution in history that lasted centuries.          

In today's Gospel passage, we see Jesus apparently warning about upcoming dangers to His followers as well as to the Jerusalem Temple.

Different scholars have different views about when this will happen, or whether it has already happened during the past 2000 years.

For instance, some argue that it has already happened in AD 70 during the Siege of Jerusalem, when Roman army captured back the city and destroyed the Second Jerusalem Temple, which was the one existing during Christ's lifetime.

A few others feel that it is the persecution of early Christians during the first three centuries, which is being predicted by Jesus here.

Some scholars even argue that the prophecy by Jesus more aptly fits the Holocaust of World War II, that happened between 1941-1945, when six million of His community members were massacred in Europe by the Nazi German army led by Hitler.

The full truth, however, is that all of Christ's prophecies are timeless, just like His teachings.

And as such, this prophecy includes not only these three momentous tragedies, but several other organized persecutions of Christians that have happened elsewhere in the world, as well as many such persecutions that are occurring now, or will occur in the future, culminating finally in an all-out persecution of Christians, and the end of the world.

For example, in the 20th century itself, there have been mass persecutions of Christians that resulted in the Armenian Genocide, Assyrian Genocide, & Greek Genocide - all by the Islamic Ottoman Empire, as well as the persecution of Christians by various atheistic or nationalistic states like Soviet Union, countries of the Communist Eastern Europe, Albania, Spain, Mexico, North Korea, and many more such countries.

Even today, those belonging to Christian faith face serious persecution, torture, and death in various countries including Syria, Iraq, & Pakistan.

Indeed, Christ's prophecy meant all these and the persecutions that are yet to happen.

But the world can be sure of one thing. Persecution and even more martyrs will only make faith in Jesus Christ stronger.