Year B – Sunday 33
Readings: Daniel 12:1–3; Hebrews 10: 11–14, 18; Mark 13: 24–32
Biblical images evoking divine dispensation of justice are a genre expressing how life on earth should be organised and lived out.
The prophet Daniel’s contrast between people who are worthy of ‘everlasting life’ and those who are worthy of ‘shame and everlasting contempt’ is a way of indicating who, in fact, accomplishes God’s salvivic plan for the world and who undermines it. He calls the former ‘wise’ and ‘righteous’; the ones who undertake to bring about God’s plan for universal happiness, peace and justice.
On the other hand, the Epistle to the Hebrews calls the latter ‘enemies of Christ’. It announces that these shall eventually be overcome; their systematic endeavours to destabilise God’s plan shall be defeated.
Jesus himself uses Daniel’s eschatological language because it was a genre the people of his time understood so well. Nevertheless, his main point is that, though ‘heaven and earth will pass away’, ‘[his] words will not’. Whoever holds to his words and his vision for humanity can rest assured that they are on the right path towards the realisation of God’s plan.
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