Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous
Passage: Matthew 24:3-35
The gospel this week is quite similar to the gospel from last week. That’s because the church takes a number of weeks for preparation. The church recognises that it takes a while for messages to enter into hearts. So in these weeks leading up to the feast of the New Year in the Orthodox Church on September 12, the Church reminds us that the Year is coming to an end, our lives will come to an end, and that the world will also eventually come to its end.
And because this is something we don’t want to hear, the Church repeats it to us several times. We don’t want to hear that our lives will come to an end. We know that family members suddenly become sick or pass away, that accidents happen, every day, every minute every second. So the church reminds us of this.
It’s also fortuitous that on this day also, it is Father’s Day. This is also a reminder for us fathers – both biological and priestly – of the words that Christ speaks to us. The gospel today says:
“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Christ then gives us a catalogue of signs and indications of the end of times. That’s what we’ve just heard in this long gospel: hearing about things that will happen on the earth, wars, rumours, persecution. And one of the warnings or the signs that he gives to us is quite striking, he says, “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place,” Matthew adds his own commentary in parentheses: “(whoever reads, let him understand)” then continues, “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.”
Be radical, because things are upon you. And these words are really strange. This abomination of desolation. It comes from Daniel 9:27 in the Old Testament where he speaks about an abomination of desolation.
And most likely, he’s speaking about a very concrete historical event. There was a figure by the name of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. His last name means the “manifestation of God” because this is who he thought he was. He was the head of the Seleucids, and they came and overtook Israel in about 70 BC. When he overtook the place, he realised that the Jews held the temple of God as the most sacred space, and as the core of their being.
He then took an altar of Zeus, one of the Greek gods, and put that in the Holy of Holies, where only God was supposed to be.
It was so horrific that that event was burnt into the times, the people, the history, that this was the symbol of how things have totally been desecrated. That the place of God has now become the place of a Greek god.
So after that, you get Christ speaking about it in this passage, most likely talking about an event that would happen with the Romans, only a few decades later, which is why Matthew wrote, “whoever reads, let him understand”. He tells us to pay attention, we know what he’s talking about. And that’s because one of the Roman emperors, Caligula, proposed to set up his own image in the temple in about 40 AD.
St Paul in Thessalonians talks again about this abomination of desolation. When something takes the rightful place of God, when the Holiest of Holies has been desecrated, when instead of being the centre, the core of where God’s presence is manifested, there is something else that takes place. But we shouldn’t think that this will help us determine when the abomination is. Christ isn’t trying to give us a timeline.
And it’s quite strange that when you actually read from the fathers, what you find when they talk about these passages, they’re very disinterested in trying to put a time on it, trying to do calculations and figure out when the end of the world will be. Instead, they understand that to be about themselves – that they themselves need to be watchful.
St. Gregory the Great says this:
“And let us keep in mind that these present afflictions are as far below the last tribulations, as is the person of the herald below the majesty of the judge he precedes.”
He is saying that what is happening to us right now is nothing compared to what will be at the end. But then he says: “Reflect with all your mind upon this day”. As in now. Not the end of times, now. “My dearest Brethren. Remedy what is now defective in your present life. Amend your ways. Conquer evil temptations by standing firm against them. Repent with tears of the sins you have committed. For the more you make ready against the severity of His justice by serving Him in fear, the more serenely shall you behold the Coming of that Eternal Judge.”
So what he’s saying is, don’t worry about the time course. Don’t worry about when this will be. Worry about you yourself being watchful and ready.
And so when Christ then says to us, “when you see the abomination of desolation,” and especially on Father’s Day, both biological and priestly, we must consider where the abomination of desolation could be. It can be in the altar of the church and can be in the altar of my heart. That’s where the abomination of desolation is. The early church fathers are very clear in the way they interpret scripture. As St. Paul said, “these things happened to them as types and were written for our admonition”. These things were written for me.
And so then when Christ says, “When you see the abomination of desolation”, He’s saying, look in your hearts and see – the place is called to be the Holiest of Holies, what do you find? What do you see?
St. Paul tells the Corinthians, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19) That is a very misunderstood passage because people believe it to mean that he’s talking about individuals, and that you shouldn’t harm your body by doing something like smoking, for example.
But he actually says it in the plural. The word “you” there is in the plural in Greek. He says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God?”
And then Origen, looking at that, says,
“but each of us is a stone of that temple.”
So each of us individuals is a temple. But at the same time, each of us is a stone of the greater Temple of the body of Christ.
And that means, as Christ says to us, when you see the abomination of desolation, flee. Be radical in your action. Don’t tolerate it. We are a temple. We were fashioned by God so that we could be indwelt by him. That we could become a sanctuary of his presence. That on the altar of our hearts, we can offer gifts to him.
And so, if we look at the altar of our hearts, and here I speak more to the Father than anyone else: what is in the altar of your heart? What is in the Holiest of Holies? Look deep within – is there anything there besides Christ?
Any lust, money, pride, ambition, desire, whatever it is – what stands in the altar of your heart?
Christ tells us to take radical action. “Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place”(whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house.” Flee. Take radical action. Don’t tolerate having the abomination of desolation in your heart, the rightful place of Christ.
And there’s no action more radical than turning to Christ. In Romans 7, St. Paul says: “I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” He says, When I look at my own heart, that which I don’t want to do, I do. That which I want to do, I can’t do. And therefore I see that there is something in me, I’m being indwelt. He says, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
St. Paul feels as we should all feel: that we are made to be a temple. We are made to be indwelt, but just as we can be indwelt by Christ, we can be indwelt by many other things.
So then, let us look at our hearts, and I speak to myself first – do we not know that we are the temple of God? So how then do we tolerate something to be in the rightful place of Christ in our hearts? How do we tolerate there’s an abomination of desolation, which is anything which takes the place of Christ in the Holiest of Holies? Let us then beg our Lord Jesus Christ, that He is ever present on the altar of our hearts. And as we read in the Matins gospel, and I say to you again, let us be forever watchful that nothing and no one takes the place of Christ in our hearts. And if anything does, we are radical, we flee, we take action. Glory be to God forevermore.
? Full sermon ?
