Watching for the Son of Man

Watching for the Son of Man
Luke 21.34-38

Travel with me, back in time, to Jerusalem. The year is AD 58, nearly thirty years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Many people in the holy city came to believe in Jesus in the heady days nearly a generation ago, and many of them are still here, older and more puzzled perhaps, but still waiting and hoping and praying.

Things have been difficult, on and off. Once Pontius Pilate stopped being governor people hoped life might improve, but there was then a huge crisis over the Emperor’s plan to place a vast statue of himself in the Temple. The threat, fortunately, was seen off; Gaius, the Emperor in question, had died soon after; and when one of Herod’s grandsons, Agrippa, was made king of the Jews in 41 everyone in Jerusalem stood up and cheered. To be ruled by one of your own might be better than having governors from far away who didn’t understand local customs. That didn’t last, though. He too had died, struck down (said some) by God for blasphemously claiming the sort of divine honours that his pagan masters had given themselves. Now there had been a string of new Roman governors, each one (it seemed) worse than the last. But in 54, when Nero became Emperor, many people hoped again that peace and justice would triumph...

Taken from Luke for Everyone – by Tom Wright