The Temple of Jerusalem during Jesus’ time, It is the second temple after the first one built

by Solomon was destroyed in 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar,

the King of Babylon, when he conquered Jerusalem.Yet Jesus correctly foretold its destruction.

In the gospel, the disciples see the external adornment, but fail to see the spiritual bankruptcy behind the façade

– the hypocrisy – the oppression the rejection of the Messiah

and the Gospel and the impending death of God’s Son at the hands of the religious authorities.

The Temple was built to honour God and as a place of prayer but there were those who didn't see beyond its surface.

 

Dn 3:57, 58, 59, 60, 61 Give glory and eternal praise to him.

 ＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

Daniel 2:31-45*

In your vision you saw

A statue-very large, very bright; terrible to look at. Its head was of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. As you watched, a rock cut from a mountain, but not by human hands, struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay; smashing them. (...) But the rock that struck the statue became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.

 

That was the dream. Now the interpretation. You, O king, are king of kings, to whom the God 

of heaven has given dominion, strength, power and glory, and into whose hand he has placed humankind. (...) You are that head of gold. After you, another kingdom, inferior to yours, will rise. Then a third kingdom, of bronze, will rule the whole world. Last shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron. (...) The partly-clay and partly iron feet and toes mean that it will be a divided kingdom. And as the toes were partly iron and partly clay, the kingdom will be partly strong and partly weak. (...)

 

In the time of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom, never to be destroyed or delivered up to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and put an end to them; and it will endure forever. This is the meaning of your vision of a rock cut from a mountain not by human hands; the rock, which struck the statue and broke into pieces the iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold. (...) The dream is true and its interpretation reliable."

 

Dn 3:57, 58, 59, 60, 61 Give glory and eternal praise to him.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Luke 21:5-11

While some people were talking about the temple, remarking that it was adorned with fine stonework and rich gifts, Jesus said to them, "The days will come when there shall not be left one stone upon another of all that you now admire; all will be torn down." And they asked him, "Master, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?"

 

Jesus said, "Take care not to be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, "I am he; the Messiah the time is near at hand!' Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and troubled times, don't be frightened; for all these things must happen first, even though the end is not so soon." And Jesus said, "Nations will fight each other and kingdom will oppose kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues; in many places strange and terrifying signs from heaven will be seen.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"Christ is our hope." 

In what do we ground our hope? The first reading shows how shaky it is to trust in kings and secular power. Their kingdoms come and go, rising and falling over time, one replacing another. No earthly kingdom can last. The Gospel points out that not even the temple will last forever. The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed a few decades after Jesus' Resurrection, something Luke's readers would have known. Jesus even tells his followers that they cannot rely on the reports of the people around them, lest they be deceived.

 

If we cannot ground our hope in political power, religious structures, or the people around us, in what can we ground our hope? Only in Christ. For Christ is our hope, a hope that cannot be destroyed or deceive us. We hope in Christ because in his passion, death, and Resurrection he destroyed death, He has defeated sin and death to give us reason to hope in eternal life. Thus, as Pope Benedict taught, "One who has hope lives differently".