Meditations on Jesus' stay in Jerusalem Luke 19, 28 - 21, 38.

Forty years ago, I started Bible meditations in the novitiate of the Jesuit Order in Münster, Germany. We novices got notes on a Bible text for meditation. I liked meditating with these notes that were given to us by a young Jesuit father who just had finished his theological studies with a master’s degree in Bible studies. He knew Greek and Hebrew and since it was my ambition to be able to read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek too, I took lessons in Greek grammar from a fellow novice. Four years later, in my first theological studies, I learned Hebrew and put my attention to the study of the Hebrew Bible. Getting the chair on Christian ethics at the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck, Austria, I wanted to teach my students the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. I studied the commentaries of Biblical scholars on the Gospels and wrote a script for my students. For 19 years I read and studied Biblical texts for some weeks in my courses on Christian ethics. The spiritual experiences of my study and meditation of the New Testament are the foundation of my personal faith- and confession-sentences.

In the fall of 2018, I turned again to the New Testament to assess my Christian faith for the confrontation with the faith - and confession-sentences of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. I read, studied, and meditated on texts from the Gospel of Luke. I started with the last days and first days of the Messiah in Jerusalem, that is Luke 19, 28 – 21, 38. Why do I chose the Gospel of Luke? Luke wrote his Gospel for Theophilus. Luke is conscientious about the fact that faith cannot be simply taught, that teaching faith must lead to personal certainties and convictions and social choices (Luke 1, 1-4. The New Jerusalem Bible. 1999. New York: Boubleday). Others have written “accounts of the events that have reached their fulfilment among us” writes Luke (Luke 1, 1-2). Luke went over “the whole story” again and “carefully ordered” a new account for Theophilus (Luke 1, 3). I do not know about the choices of Theophilus, but I wanted again to assess my choices concerning Jesus Christ.

For reading and studying, I use The Greek New Testament (The Greek New Testament 1994. Aland, Barbara, Aland Kurt, Karavidopoulos, Johannes, Martini, Carlo, M., Metzger, Bruce M. (Editors). Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, United Bible Societies. Stuttgart: Biblia-Druck.) and Bovon (Bovon, Francois. 2009. Das Evangelium nach Lukas. Lk 19,28–24,53. Evangelisch-Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament III/4. Neukirchen-Vluyin: Neukirchener Verlag). From the study of the texts, I produce some notes that constitute the preparation for my meditation on the text.

For the meditation I prepare some notes. These notes do not represent a systematic study of the text. The studies of the Biblical scholars help me understand the text. The notes are preparations for meditation. The aim of the notes is not knowledge, the aim is a help for meditating. The notes are on a few verses, or even on some phrases of a particular verse of the text which I want to meditate because these verses or phrases spoke to me, attracted me, or interested my inner senses. That is, I take for meditation only a couple of verses. I want to meditate them on my own, I want to sense and feel my experience of the text, and I want to take advantage of tasting the sense that I am feeling. Meditating is not about an exegesis of the text or explications, thoughts, and scholarly remarks. Meditating is about tasting with the inner senses of consciousness, that is consciously tasting and taking spiritual profit from the experience of sense. These sentences sound a little bit like number two of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556 CE). The Spiritual Exercises are my inspiration but the foundation of my meditations in the following is the text of the Bible. Yes, I learned from Ignatius, and he is right “not much knowledge fills and satisfies the soul but feeling and tasting from the inner things” (Loyola, Ignatius de. 1987. Ejercicios espirituales, introduced and annotated by Candido de Dalmases, S.I. Number 3. Santander: Sal Terrae). The foundation of Christian faith is the Word of Go’d that is the Bible and the human words of announcing Christian faith-sentences “as these were handed down to us by those who from the outset were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke 1, 2). Being foundation, Christian faith- and confession-sentences cannot but express experiences of community with Go’d. Without experiencing being save and secure by Go’d there is no Christian proclamation of the Good News. This self-understanding of a Christian in the first quarter of the 21st century CE is somewhat different from the religious worldviews that are about evolving from the European Middle Ages at the times of Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century CE (see mz Post "Spirituality needs emotions, feelings, and choices").

After meditating, I will write some sentences again and describing my experience and expressing my faith-sentences, if there are any.

Notes on Luke 19, 28-40: The Messiah enters Jerusalem.

Bovon (2009, 27-38) helps me studying and understanding the text.

Jesus is on his way up to Jerusalem, the place of his deepest humiliation, his torture, death, and complete failure of his movement. “All his friends stood at a distance; so also did the women, who had accompanied him from Galilee and saw all this happen” (Luke 23, 49). The theme of the suffering Messiah is a matter of the heart for Luke.

Jerusalem is also the place where some of the women who had accompanied him from Galilee experienced that “the Son of man” had been risen. The first believing in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ were “Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. And the other women with them also told the apostles, but this story of theirs seemed pure nonsense, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24, 10).

How can Luke make the disciples praise Jesus as the messianic king when he enters Jerusalem? If the disciples are really convinced that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, why will they then slowly and with hesitating resistance realize the resurrection of Jesus after his death? Mark, Matthew, and John narrate that the people welcome Jesus like a king when he enters Jerusalem. In that case one can say that Mark, Matthew, and John make the people welcome Jesus on the wrong assumption that he was a worldly king.

Luke presents Jesus as pilgrim. This pilgrim gets prepared for his determination, the passion and the passing over to his father. The way to his deepest humiliation is the way to his kingdom that is to justice and peace. It is the kingdom of a pilgrim. Jesus starts his entry into Jerusalem near the Mount of Olives. If a king is in need, he confiscates a colt. Jesus gets a colt, a symbol of peace where the horses of war are banished. The disciples praise Jesus with Psalm 118, 26, the traditional welcome for all pilgrims to Jerusalem. They praise Jesus for “all powers” they had seen. “Blessed is he who is coming as King in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19, 38. Psalm 118,28). Well, they are already convinced; they had their faith experiences, their vision of peace: They believe in Jesus who brings justice and peace on a colt and not on a war chariot.

Jesus is in trouble, the Pharisees in the crowd ask Jesus to stop his disciples praising him as the messianic king. Jesus answers the Pharisees: “I tell you, if these keep silence, the stones will cry out” (Luke 19, 39). Luke cites the prophet Habakkuk protesting the oppressor: “For the very stone will protest from the wall, and the beam will respond from the framework” (Habakkuk 2, 11). Jesus defends his disciples who cry for justice with the words of the prophet Habakkuk.

Marc narrates the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem as the eschatological coming of the kingdom of David. Matthew presents Jesus with Psalm 118,26 already as son of David (Matthew 21, 9); we are in front of Christology. John shows a political picture (John 12, 12-19): There is the huge crowd of people shouting and waving branches of palm and there are the Pharisees plotting a strategy because “the whole world has gone after him” that is after Jesus.

I think that the Gospels do not narrate a historic entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a colt. The disciples praising Jesus as messianic king in Luke, the people praising Jesus as messianic king in Marc and Matthew, and the people waving branches of palm in John are not historic.

Luke, Marc, and Matthew cite Zechariah’s proclamation of the savior king on a colt.

Jesus’ ride symbolizes the imminent realization of his kingdom. To describe the kingdom of Jesus, Luke refers to the prophet Zechariah who proclaims the royal savior riding on a colt according to the Septuagint:

“Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem! Look, your king is approaching, he is vindicated and victorious, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem; the bow of war will be banished. He will proclaim peace to the nations, his empire will stretch from sea to sea, from the river to the limits of the earth” (Zechariah 9, 9-10).

Jesus’ ride symbolizes the imminent realization of his kingdom. Luke shows Theophilus that Jesus is about to fulfill his mission in the way that the prophet Zachariah has spoken about and announced the messiah king. All the citations from the Prophets and the Psalms are speaking about peace, they do not speak about the suffering and the death at the cross. And they do not speak about resurrection by Go’d.

Do I believe that the way to justice and peace is peacefully riding on a colt to all nations and defending the thirst for justice and peace as legitimate right of women, men and queer who express this claim to justice and peace?

After having written this question I went to bed.

Meditation on Luke 19, 28-40:

The next morning, I sat down for meditation in my armchair. I closed my eyes, turned my senses inward and stayed with my consciousness. There were still the television pictures from last evening and my agitated consciousness. I had been watching the US senate’s judiciary committee hearing for appointment of a Supreme Court judge on CNN. Professor Christine Blasey Ford had long realized her social choice of facing the trauma of sexual assault and suffering the pain of the persisting wounds to her integrity. She overcame her silence and the desolation that society did not want to hear her story that is the story of millions of women, queer and men. She testified having been sexually assaulted as a fifteen-year-old high school girl by a drunken seventeen-year-old boy who now stands as candidate for the Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh pathetically performed with emotions a political assault on the opponents of his nomination and denied the charges against him or even having known Mrs. Ford at the time. Professor Ford testifies of her supportive social surrounding that empowers her to stand the accusations of being a liar in search of fame. Judge Kavanaugh reads testimonies of his integrity written by women and men who had known him for decades. What would be the procedure or process to get to the truth? Professor Ford was peacefully realizing her social choice to speak up and pass through the suffering. She wants a Supreme Court judge of personal integrity. Judge Kavanaugh was realizing the political game of becoming judged and doing justice.

It took me fifteen minutes to calm down.

I was thankful for the privilege to be able to take time for meditation every day for the last thirty-seven years. During my philosophical studies in Paris a French Jesuit colleague introduced me to what he called Christian Yoga. The positions of Hata Yoga helped me to stay in contact with my body. Staying aware of the regular rhythm of breathing, the guided slow and smooth expirations and inspirations make me feel comfortable. Soon I introduced for my meditation a yoga sitting position on the floor and the warm and steady breathing flow in my daily morning meditation helped calming me down. The flame of a candle helped concentrate putting aside any thoughts or pictures. After some years I meditated without candle, just closing my eyes to concentrate on the inner consciousness. Calm and peace came and gave me strength and energy for the day’s workload. At the end of the meditation on Luke 19, 28-40 I was thankful for the Jesuits whose formation had educated me so that I could become a professor at the University of Innsbruck. I was thankful for the democratic rule of law in the liberal state of Austria that thwarted the Jesuits’ efforts to remove me from the Faculty of Theology of Innsbruck University.

I realized my consciousness was silent and received a feeling of calm and peace. What happens in meditation is given to consciousness.

For fifteen minutes my consciousness was calm and peaceful with the prophet Jesus realizing his social choice for peace. Jesus stays active; he is doing peace and answers the Pharisees’ opposition with a reference to a prophet of the common culture. My consciousness enjoyed the peace-realizing and peace-empowering active Jesus.

It has happened so often, when I was experiencing inner peace and happiness in meditation: I could not stay with these feelings of quiet calm. Full of happiness I started to disturb my meditation. My consciousness started resisting staying with the peace feeling that happened to me. Like a tired muscle my consciousness wanted to relax, and thoughts were entering meditation and dissolving my concentration. I had to stretch consciousness like the tendons of my muscles when practicing yoga. Like the cells of the muscles work together, the cells of the brain collaborate to produce consciousness. Consciously responding to the conflict between meditation and thought associations is a practice like yoga. Understanding my difficulties and failures and continuing unerringly my way without adjusting to distracting violence is possible. Not taking notice of my feelings is doing violence to my body. Not taking notice of the feelings of others is doing violence to them.

Meditation allows me to stay calm and peaceful. My interactions at work at university still need improving in that direction.

Notes on Luke 19, 41-48: Jesus weeps over Jerusalem.

The entry into Jerusalem as messianic king was not historical, it was symbolic. In verse 41 of Luke 19, that is after the entry into Jerusalem in Luke 19, 28-38, Luke describes Jesus coming near to Jerusalem: “As he drew near and came in sight of the city, he shed tears over it” (Luke 19, 41). This later verse contradicts the earlier entry into Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is corrupt, socially, politically, and spiritually. The Temple, its religious, political, spiritual, and economic center is also corrupt. Thousand years of temple cult of Yahweh, the One and Only, will come to an end because the high priests, the scribes and a small and powerful Jewish elite are no longer able to guarantee peace and justice, the social coherence of society. Jerusalem has lost its living power. It is clear for Jesus that Jerusalem will perish.

As Jesus had just defended his disciples crying for justice, he now cries before his disciples over the children, women, men and queer of Jerusalem.

Jesus cries. Luke brings into focus the empathy and loving kindness, the goodness of the saving Messiah.

Luke 19, 46 makes Jesus refer to Isaiah and to Jeremiah. Isaiah 56,7: Yahweh promises to all foreigners who cling to his covenant observing the Sabbath to “make them joyful in my house of prayer”. Yahweh asks in Jeremiah 7, 11a: “Do you look on this Temple that bears my name as a den of bandits?”

Having expulsed the dealers from the Temple (Luke 19, 45-46) Jesus continues teaching in the Temple (Luke 19, 47). I cannot think of another woman, man or queer who is able to cry over the coming catastrophe for Jerusalem and the Temple, and still finds the motivation to go on teaching peace and justice in the Temple.

Luke 19, 47b: “The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the leading citizens, tried to do away with him”. And indeed, after all the good that Jesus had done, they will kill him. In Acts 10, 39 Peter will tell Cornelius the Roman Centurion: “Now we are witnesses to everything he did throughout the countryside of Judea and in Jerusalem itself: and they killed him by hanging him on a tree”. “Yet on the third day God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen (Acts 10, 40).

In Acts 10,38 Luke makes confesses Peter that Jesus becomes Messiah through Go’d who anoints him with Holy Spirit and power. Luke makes use of the oldest Christian kerygma that had been written down long before Luke writes for Theophilus:

“God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil.” A new culture and cult of Yahweh is prepared and about to be realized by Jesus.

Meditation on Luke 19, 41-48:

Preparing for meditation, I practiced the yoga sequence of the sun salutation. I remained in the heel seat for two or three minutes to speak to my body and ask him to produce my integrity-consciousness. After the sun salutation, I felt ok.

Just as the morning before it took some minutes to get persons of the faculty and thoughts of the exegetes out of my consciousness. Then my consciousness took for meditation the sentence that Jesus was taking care of his disciples, women, men and queer. I felt sustained meditating on Jesus successfully maintaining bonds to women, men and queer following him.

Follow-up of the meditation:

Jesus had to explain a lot to his disciples to make his teachings understood. The disciples are happy about a sort of king entering Jerusalem speaking and realizing justice and peace, that Yahweh promises for earth (Luke 19, 38). Happiness, inspiration, and hopes will fade if Jesus does not care for them. With loving perseverance, he must teach them how to become agents of his message of peace and justice. Jesus teaches realizing deeds, and his deeds are teaching. For Luke this is the only stay of Jesus in Jerusalem. From Luke 19, 47 – 21, 38 Jesus teaches in or near the Temple.

Notes on Luke 20, 1-47: Jesus, the Messiah teaches in the Temple.

We have four disputes (Luke 20,1–8. 20–26. 27–40. 41–44), one parable with a note of dispute at the end (Luke 20, 9–19) and one scene composed of single sayings of Jesus (Luke 20, 45–47). The Biblical experts say that Luke presents Jesus in chapter 20 of his Gospel as a prophet that got his authority from heaven, a prophet that speaks, teaches, and preaches in the name of Go’d. I am not convinced of this analysis of the experts.

I think that Luke follows a design on his own. His respect for Marc and his authority together with his own design must be the reason why he takes the whole chapter from Mark keeping the order of Marc 11, 27 – 12, 40. Mark 12, 28–34, where Jesus teaches the greatest commandment of all, Luke had already narrated in his chapter 10. In the whole chapter 20 Luke makes Jesus teach the people (in Greek: laós). His disciples had already come to believe in Jesus as the king who is coming in the name of the Lord that is as the Messiah (Luke 19, 38). The people are listening to Jesus and no longer listen to the high priests, the scribes and the elders.

Jesus already has authority (Luke 20, 1-8). The people of Israel get new leaders. The Jews who became Christians get new leaders (Luke 20, 9-19). By the way, the Jews who stay Jews will get new leaders too. The power of Cesar does not extend over the freedom and liberty of women, men and queer (Luke 20, 20-26). Jesus is a Messiah because he can assess that “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, He is God of the living” (Luke 20, 37-38).

Notes on Luke 20, 1-8: The question about authority.

What is your authority (The experts tell me that the Greek term “exousia” means freedom, authority, and power) and who authorizes you? This question Jesus is to answer. Already in Jeremiah we find a dispute between Jeremiah and the prophet Hananiah on the criteria for recognizing a prophet “as one truly sent by Yahweh”. In Jeremiah 28, 9 Jeremiah says: “The prophet who prophesies peace can be recognized as one truly sent by Yahweh only when his word comes true”.

Jesus was teaching the good news that is the Gospel to the people in the Temple. The people listen to Jesus and the question concerning the authority is answered. The people no longer consider the chief priests and the scribes an authority. The authority for the people is already Jesus. Jeremiah’s criterion for a true prophet has come true. Jesus prophesies peace and the people follow this teaching. Peacefully Jesus realizes his teaching.

Meditation on Luke 20, 1- 8:

Preparing for meditation, I did the sun salutation speaking to my body: My body please give me my integrity. Feeling ok is important for starting a meditation on beliefs and faith.

The way you use the word God does not show whom you mean – but rather, what you mean (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Culture and Value. 51. Edited by G. H. von Wright, translated by Peter Winch. Oxford: Blackwell). I think that Luke follows this rule of Wittgenstein; that is I read Luke as if he had followed Wittgenstein.

I was not much distracted and started meditating right after reading Luke 20, 1-8 again. Luke narrates that Jesus teaches the people in the Temple the good news. Good news is good news from Go’d. Where is Go’d? Go’d is with Jesus; Go’d is with the people because they listen to Jesus. The people are convinced that John was a prophet. Go’d is with John the Baptist and with the people who listened to him and got baptized. Baptism is the rite to celebrate that Go’d is with one. Go’d is not in the Temple because Jesus said that Go’d wanted “a house of prayers” and not “a bandits’ den” (Luke 19, 46). I believe that Go’d is also with the chief priests, the scribes and with the elders in some hidden way. Only they could tell if they experience the power of Go’d and they decide to say that “they did not know” (Luke 20, 7). The good news that Jesus teaches, proclaims that Go’d is with the women, men and queer of this world. I receive peace from this sentence, and I take comfort from meditating on it.

Notes on Luke 20, 9-19: Parable of the wicked tenants:

Jesus addresses his parable to the people (Luke 20, 9). Revolts against the big landowners are typical for the first century. In Luke 20, 16c the people respond to the parable. Luke very much insists on Jesus’ special relationship to the people. We find a short version of the parable of the wicked tenents in the Gospel of Thomas.

The Gospel of Thomas in the translation by B. M. Metzger reads in §§65 and 66 (Aland 1965, 525):

“(65) He said: A good (chraestos) man had a vineyard. He gave it to tenants that they might cultivate it and he might receive its fruit (karpós) from them. He sent his servant so that the tenants might give him the fruit (karpós) of the vineyard. They seized his servant (and) beat him; a little more and they would have killed him. The servant came (and) told it to his master. His master said, Perhaps he did not know them. He sent another servant; the tenants beat him as well. Then (tote) the owner sent his son. He said, Perhaps they will respect my son. Since (epei) those tenants knew that he was the heir (klaeronómos) of the vineyard, they seized him (and) killed him. He who has ears, let him hear. (66) Jesus said: Show me the stone which the builders rejected. It is the cornerstone”.

Manuscripts from the Dead Sea scrolls show that “vineyard” is a metaphor for the chosen people (4Q500 1). “Son” in Hebrew is “Ben”, and “Stone” that is in Hebrew “Aeben” sounds very similar. In Late Antiquity Christology interprets “the stone” as “the son”, Jesus as the anointed (in Greek: christós). Luke 20, 17 “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” refers to Psalm 118, 22 and Isaiah 28, 16.

Bovon tells me that according to the historical method the parable is not from the mouth of Jesus. The whole commentary on the parable of the expert Bovon (2009, 66-75) is very interesting and important. Yet for my meditation, I want to make the following point:

Luke tells the Jewish people with the words of Jesus that there will be new leaders for them. The Jews that become Christians will have their apostles, women, men and queer to teach them the Gospel and structure the life of the Christian communities.

Meditation on Luke 20, 9-19:

Preparing for meditation, I did the sun salutation speaking to my body: My body please give me my integrity. Feeling ok is important for starting a meditation on beliefs and faith.

I use the expressions “meditation” and “contemplation” as synonyms. I prefer the term contemplation when meditation lets me stay tasting pictures of the agent Jesus.

I found peace and the love of justice contemplating that the fruits of Go’d’s vineyard are peace and justice and love. Luke tells of Jesus directly facing the scribes and the chief priests and making it clear for their eyes that they will kill themselves if they kill Jesus, because nobody is able to live without peace, justice, and love.

Luke narrates that Jesus was telling the people a parable so they could understand his message. The people are listening and at the end, their frightening presence keeps the scribes and the chief priests from killing Jesus. The people are listening, they are hearing of peace and justice that give hope to their poor lives and they manifest their interest in Jesus’ teaching. These women, men and queer who attentively listened to Jesus were not starting to actively realize the teaching. They did not become agents of peace, justice, and love in the sense that they would have organized resistance to their scribes and high priests.

Jesus is the Good and teaching Shepherd.

John makes Jesus identify himself with the vineyard that his father had planted and cares for (John 15, 1-2):

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.”

Did John presuppose that the people had become believing women, men and queer that is disciples? He claims that the possibility condition to realize peace, justice and love is an adjunction of an interaction with Jesus and Go’d (John 15, 5):

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.”

Jesus speaks in John 15 to his disciples and not to the people. Luke speaks of the people, and he uses this term in a way that makes me think not only of Jews in Jerusalem but of other people as well, that is all the people that possibly listen to Jesus’ teaching and performing parables.

Follow-up of the meditation:

Why do I regularly write at the beginning of a meditation or a contemplation that I had prepared with an exercise of the sun salutation and made sure that I was ok? I am a rich man living in the rich part of the world and I think that Job of the Book Job was also a rich man. We cannot compare the sufferings of Job and our personal traumata and sufferings as rich women, men and queer within a rich and free country with a highly developed welfare state and democratic government. We cannot even compare the life of Job to the inhumane living conditions of the billions of poor women, men and queer on this world. The television pictures of the horrific sufferings of the women, men and queer in Indonesia who just experienced the terrible catastrophes of an earthquake and a tsunami that took their families away and leave them starving and despairing on the rubble of the destruction speak to our consciences and we better stay silent and send help. Traumatized women, men and queer not receiving fast enough help, are robbed, and ripped of their last pennies for a bottle of drinking water; traumatized orphaned children remain without speech, caring surviving women give comfort having suffered the loss of everything themselves.

The misery of the rich man Job is very different from the misery of these suffering survivors in Indonesia. The surviving women, men and queer in Indonesia are struggling to survive. The story of Job is about how to cope with destiny that makes you suffer but does not kill you.

Job suffered the terrible loss of his children and the less terrible loss of his fortune, he suffered from “malignant ulcers from the sole of his foot to the top of his head” (Job 2, 7). Everybody would understand that he “took a piece of pot to scrape himself and went and sat among the ashes” (Job 2, 8). Yet, something is already foul; Job had lost his agency to relate to his wife. She reacts to his self-righteous isolation and to his incapacity to bond with her suggesting he “curse God and die” (Job 2, 9).

The wife of Job is right suggesting cursing the unjust and cruel Go’d. The wife understands at least that the case is Job against Go’d and not Job against his helpless friends.

The four friends of Job who came from far to offer silent empathy and uninterrupted presence for one week were of no help for Job. The friends suggested that Job caused his misery by some sin, disobedience or pride against Yahweh and admonish him to confess and repent. Job is not conscientious of having offended Go’d in any way. In his silent suffering he finally “cursed the day of his birth” (Job 3, 1). It is true that the following discussions with the friends who defend their mind-set of a just Go’d and accuse Job of wrongdoing that caused his suffering, are not really helpful for Job, he is a righteous man.

Go’d confirms that Job does right speaking to him and that the friends’ speaking about Go’d does not lead to anywhere (Ebach, Jürgen. 2007. 1240. “Das Buch Hiob.” In Bibel in gerechter Sprache, edited by Ulrike Bail, Frank Crüsemann, Marlene Crüsemann, Erhard Domay, Jürgen Ebach, Claudia Janssen, Helga Kuhlmann, Martin Leutzsch and Luise Schottroff, 1239–1240. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus).

Job’s accusing Go’d for causing his suffering does not really help very much either but his speaking to Go’d and Go’d’s answers are one important element on the way to health and physical, psychic, social, economic, cultural and spiritual integrity. Go’d accepts the lamentations and accusations of Job, he is right speaking to Go’d, but accusing Go’d of the human condition does not help Job getting back his health and integrity.

After thirty-nine chapters of speeches and discussion, the situation of Job is changed. Job has gained again his health and physical, psychic, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual integrity. He relates again to his wife, and they have ten children, he receives his family again and his fortune in animals is great. He makes his friends relate to Yahweh and finally dies peacefully after having enjoyed his life. What had happened? Impossible to say.

Three verbs in the verses of Job 42, 2-3 suggest where the changes had happened. The predications point at Job’s mind setting and consciousness. Job had always stuck to speak based on his experience. His basic experience was suffering. He changed his mind-set and by this was able to change his experience. He started experiencing being healthy and that suffering had left. Three times Job uses expressions of knowledge from the semantic field of knowing (in Hebrew: jada and da’at) (Ebach, Jürgen. 1996. 155. Hiob 21–42. Streiten mit Gott. Teil 2. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). In Job 42, 2 he says that he knows that You, Yahweh can do all and anything. This means that Job had made the experience and recognized, that Go’d can realize what he, Job, had thought impossible to realize. Go’d does not cut off or withhold the realization of some purpose or goal. This agency of Go’d concerns Go’d as the fighter against chaos who fends off Behemoth and Leviathan and procures and cares for the possibility conditions of human life on earth (ibid.).

Did Job realize and understand that what Yahweh was doing, also he himself could do? Are we all chaos fighters and do all humans dispose over the capacity to overcome chaos and destruction? Do we humans have to take seriously the self-healing faculties that make function our bodies?

Why not think about the possibility that Job discovered that he could imitate Go’d, and that Go’d expected from him to start using his self-healing competences? Job tried, he asked his body to restore his integrity and he experienced his integrity. He experienced being able to love his wife again, because after having meditated love before the eyes of Go’d he was convinced that love is possible. He experienced again or for the first time the feeling of love that he had thought to be impossible to experience towards his wife. Job experienced that nothing is impossible for Go’d in the sense that what seemed impossible for him to experience again, he experienced again because he asked his body to restore his integrity.

Job changed his mind set. Having insisted on his integrity he stops his passive silence concerning Go’d and gets active starting to listen to Go’d. Job starts meditating, becoming silent for concentration. Silently he focused on listening by allowing his consciousness of receiving peace and calm. Not wanting to receive, Job characterizes as not-knowing (Job 42, 3a). By speaking about oneself without having listened to oneself Job was incapable of getting to know the most wonderful things (Job 42, 3b) (ibid.: 156). What had brought Job to change his mind set? It was himself! He told his consciousness not to speak any more to others about his suffering but to work for his integrity that is to let work the healing forces of the body to restore integrity and make him experience this integrity. To tell the body to do the healing is discovering, accepting, and operating a force and agency that hitherto had been hidden to Job’s knowledge. He will accept his suffering and never again will cut himself off from his healing experience. He rejects the rejection that leads to passive paralyses. He can be sorry of what he has said and uses his agency of securing his integrity sitting on dry earth and ashes (Job 42, 6).

Job can say sorry and change his mind set. The Hebrew verb “nhm” in the Niphal form “niham” is used by Yahweh in Genesis 6, 6 when deciding on the big flood: “Yahweh regretted having made human beings on earth and was grieved at heart.” Yahweh was sorry of having created the world. Job regrets, he changes his mindset. This change can be for the worse or for the better. “niham“ is also used in Jonah 3, 9-10: Yahweh who observes the efforts of the people of Nineveh “renouncing their evil ways”, regrets “the disaster which he had threatened to bring on them, and did not bring it” (Ebach 1996, 157). From these uses it is getting clear that Yahweh does not repent as a sinner repents, but makes a decision, he changes his mind set. So, we must see a cognitive aspect when Job says sorry, he has learned something and changed his mind (ibid.).

He has realized that he was coping with the losses he had suffered and is well alive and well. There is no need to repeat the sufferings that were real at a time but now are not necessary anymore. Job is aware of his resilience that enables him to live well in the presence. Sitting in dust and ashes describes his real situation and Job now is ready to accept his situation (ibid.). Job does not reject his accusations of Go’d and consequently gets healed, rather Job gets healed because of a changed mind set and because of this changed mind set and his new knowledge he also rejects his former accusations of Go’d (ibid.: 159–60). Ebach interprets the restoration of Job’s integrity as a consequence of his accepting the world as it is (ibid.: 160). I would rather say that accepting the world as it is, and apparently, the world is not only suffering losses and the threat of death, is a consequence of the restoration of health and integrity. Job can give thanks to Go’d for his life. So, what did restore his health?

I suggested that Job changed his mindset because he discovered, trusted, and operated the healing forces of his body. I am conscious of the projection of my biography onto of the changing mindset of Job. We do not know how Job had changed his mind set. We just know that he had changed his mindset.

What is sure is the fact that first is the operation of securing one’s integrity with the competence the body bears with itself, then follows Go’d talk, thanksgiving and prayer. If prayer does not lead to performing well in life and paying attention to my integrity and the integrity of my fellow citizens, I had meditated a paper tiger.

Notes on Luke 20, 20-26: On tribute to Caesar.

Again, the Gospel of Thomas presents a very short version of the story in Luke 20, 20-26. § 100 reads: “They showed Jesus a gold (coin) and said to him: Caesar’s agents demand taxes from us. He said to them: Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give Go’d what belongs to Go’d and give to me what is mine.”

Many church fathers wrote on the difference of the picture of Caesar that idealizes the human body, and the pictures of female, male and queer that God creates in Genesis 1, 27: “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” I like the interpretation that women, men, and queer as “imago Dei” are not idealized bodies but individual persons.

For my interpretation and meditation of Luke 20, 20-26 Barilan’s article (Barilan, Yechiel Michael. 2009. “From Imago Dei in the Jewish-Christian Traditions to Human Dignity in Contemporary Jewish Law.” The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 19 (3): 231–259.2009) is my inspiration:

Emphasis on the human shape as endowed with human dignity brought the Rabbis to proclaim all human races and bodies as bearing the same level of dignity. The Talmud explains that whereas human kings issue coins with their image on each—i.e., every coin is identical to every other—God stamps each human being with a unique face and body, whereby all such faces and bodies equally represent His image (Talmud, Sanhedrin, 37a; Altman 1968). It seems that, since human eyes can see and imagine only particular bodies and faces, God’s “face”- for which every human face serves as a genuine icon - remains elusive to human perception. The mainstream of Rabbis established respect for imago Dei on diversity and in clear rejection of Hellenic preoccupation with the ideal and idealized human body as a theme for real people (Barilan 2009).

Luke makes Jesus teach that the political power must be respected at the validity condition that the individual’s particularity as an individual is respected.

Meditation on Luke 20, 20-26:

Preparing for meditation, I practiced the yoga sun salutation assessing that I am ok.

I was calm in the meditation but this time the calm was plain and sober. I felt almost unemotionally well. There was no excitement of peace; there was sober silence in my consciousness.

What was happening?

I asked what Luke was revealing in the narrative of Luke 20, 20-26. Marc and Matthew give the same revelation. Jeremiah had revealed that the word of Yahweh “came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans living in Egypt” (Jeremiah 44, 1). “Yahweh, God Sabaoth, God of Israel says this” (Jeremiah 44, 7): “To this day” the men and women in the streets of Jerusalem and Judah “have felt neither contrition nor fear; they have not walked in the way of my law or my statues, which I have given in the sight of your faces as before the faces of your fathers” (Jeremiah 44, 10).

The scribes and the chief priests had hired spies.They confirm, that Jesus is teaching and walking the right way of Yahweh. Marc and Matthew make the spies also confirm that Jesus does not show partiality or favoritism to anybody (Luke 20, 21). Jesus does not discriminate; he treats everybody as equals. Marc and Matthew say in Greek “that Jesus does not look at the faces”, Luke says Jesus “does not take the face”. In this narrative on tribute to Caesar, the Gospel in Greek uses the expression “face”, just as the Roman coin.

With the statement of the liars and spies we are in politics. We are in power politics anyways. The chief priests and scribes turn to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor of the Roman emperor. The question of the spies is about politics, taxes is about financing the imperial policies of Caesar. Jesus accepts the challenge and confirms that politics, Roman politics, is part of the economic, political, and social life of the Jews, they all pay with Roman money.

Jesus treats Caesar and Go’d with the same predication, Jesus is in politics, he teaches his policy: Give Go’d what is of Go’d. In Greek, there is simply written: “Give that of Caesar Caesar and that of Go’d Go’d” (Luke 20, 25). What is Go’d’s? To respect the equal dignity, liberty, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer is – according to the liars and spies – Jesus’ way of righteous teaching and righteous living.

Claiming and realizing my dignity, freedom, and equal rights is realizing “that of Go’d” concerning me and my life. My dignity, freedom and equal rights are “hat of Go’d” because I am called to realize as vine the fruits of Go’d’s vineyard that are peace and justice. Without equal dignity, freedom, and rights there is no peace and justice. God’s “face” – for which every human face serves as a genuine icon – remains elusive to human perception (Barilan 2009). Go’d gave before the face of Israel and the whole world the Torah. Go’d gave the face of Jesus Christ before the faces of women, men and queer of the whole world. Jesus Christ is a unique face and body, that serve as a genuine icon of Go’d’s “face”. God stamps each human being with a unique face and body, whereby all such faces and bodies equally represent His image (ibid.). Jesus Christ teaches and realizes the dignity, liberty, freedom, and equal rights because he respects all as a unique face and body, he does not discriminate. We are still trying to realize our dignity and Human Rights in this world. The claim to give “that-of-Go’d-Go’d” is the claim to realize our dignity and Human Rights as unique faces and bodies of Go’d’s face and therefore this realization cannot be separated from that we acknowledge and give as “that-of-Caesar-Caesar”. “That-of-Go’d-Go’d” must get realized by the faces of Go’d on this earth and “that-of-Caesar-Caesar” does not necessarily contradict “that-of-Go’d-Go’d”. The two often came and still regularly come to conflict with each other. As far as the revelation of Luke, Mark and Matthew.

Trying to kill Jesus with the help of the Roman authority therefore is trying to destroy an icon of Go’d, that is again destroying the Torah. The Rabbis help me to better understand revelation. Shalom.

Notes on Luke 20, 27-40: The resurrection of the dead.

The Sadducees have a question that concerns the Torah, the Law of Moses. The question concerns Deuteronomy 25, 5 (the levirate law) in connection with Genesis 38, 8: What happens to a wife in heaven who had been married to seven brothers, one after the death of the other? What will happen after resurrection?

The main verbs in the verses Luke 20, 34b–36, that is the answer of Jesus, are all Indicative Present. This means: “The children of this age” (aiwn) who marry and get married and those women and men who live in “that age” (aiwn) “and in the resurrection from the dead” are contemporaries. Resurrection from the dead already is a reality. Jesus, like a Rabbi, interprets the Torah giving testimony to his claim to the resurrection. Jesus cites Moses who “calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, he is God of the living, “for to him everyone is alive” (Luke 20, 37-38).

Bovon comments on Luke 20, 38: Calvin interpreted with precision: Resurrection is grounded on Go’d and not on the immortal soul of Greek philosophy or on merits (Bovon 2009, 130).

Meditation on Luke 20, 27–40.

I meditated on the sentence: Go’d is “God, not God of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive” (Luke 20, 38).

I felt fine with this sentence. I am living and Go’d is Go’d of the living. I thought about my parents. They brought together a sperm cell and an oocyte. To do that is already something great, but has little to do with Luke 20, 38. Go’d is Go’d of the living, that is also of the parents of the parents. Meditation goes on with Luke 20, 38 and nothing else. Go’d is Go’d of the living. My life has been threatened by my Umwelt several times, but Go’d is Go’d of my living. Saying Luke 20, 38 saturates my consciousness like a good meal in pleasant company. Go’d is invisible, that is right but the sentence that Go’d is Go’d of the living makes me feel good. My consciousness receives and affirms my well-being and with satisfaction takes notice of my sober pursuit of happiness staying with Luke 20, 38. There is no consciousness without atoms and the atoms are not without the universe, or the world of universes and Go’d is Go’d of the living. That is meditation. It tell myself: If you want to be happy, meditate. If you want to get knowledge, think. But do not forget, the sentence Go’d is Go’d of the living is a speech-act of consciousness. Doing science and research about consciousness or happiness and sadness and language and speech is exciting and rewarding. Meditating the sentence Luke 20, 38 and receiving relief and consolation is happyness.

Notes on Luke 20, 41–47: The Messiah, Christ, is Lord of David, not son of David.

Jesus continues speaking “to them” that is to the scribes (Bovon 2009, 137). The Pharisees claimed the Davidic origin of the Messiah. Dead Sea scrolls testify that the Essenes also expected a Davidic Messiah as well as a priestly Messiah.

Jesus responds to the scribes citing Psalm 101,1:

“The Lord declared to my Lord, take your seat at my right hand, till I have made your enemies your footstool.”

The Hebrew Bible speaks in Psalm 110, 1 of Yahweh and of a distinguished person “adonai” that is a king. The Greek language used by the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, makes it possible to say, “the Lord speaks to my Lord” using both times the term “kurios”. The first time “kurios” is Yahweh “adonai” and the second time “kurios” is identified by the Christians with Christ, the Messiah (Bovon 2009, 141-42).

There is no other citation of the Old Testament in the New Testament that gets cited as often as Psalm 110,1 (Bovon 2009, 138). Peter uses the Psalm again in Acts 2, 34–35 in his Pentecostal speech. Luke, Mark, and Matthew use the citation as Jesus’ answer to the Sanhedrin (Matthew 26, 64, Marc 14, 62, Luke 22, 69).

Luke 24, 25–27 gives the impression that Moses and all the prophets had spoken about the necessity of the passion for Christ’s entering his glory. All these citations are important for Luke’s making understand the reader that it was the passion, the suffering that led Jesus to his glory. In Luke 20, 17 Luke had been used Psalm 118, 22, Jesus is the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone.

Luke insists that the resurrection makes the son of David to the Lord of David (Bovon 2009, 138). I understand this sentence in the context of Luke 20, 36: The children of the resurrection are no longer of the order of the children on the earth, because the children of the resurrection are children of Go’d. Go’d makes Jesus the Lord of David.

In Luke 20, 45–47 Jesus warns his disciples not to become like the Pharisees. Luke repeats the warning all over his Gospel: In Luke 6, 32–35 Luke makes Jesus demand “love your enemies and do good to them, and lend without any hope of return” … “for the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”. In Luke 9, 46–48 Luke makes Jesus end the power speculations of his disciples. Jesus takes a little child and says: “Anyone who welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me. The least among you all is the one who is the greatest”. In Luke 11, 44 Jesus calls the Pharisees “unmarked tombs”. In Luke 14, 7–14 Jesus he told the guests of a banquet who tried to choose the best places at table: “For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up” (Luke 14, 11). And in Luke 14, 13 Jesus said to his host: “When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind”.

Meditation on Luke 20, 41–47.

I assessed my integrity while practicing the sun salutation. Who is the king of Jesus? Yahweh is his Go’d, his father. The Torah is his king who creates the policy of his life. Yahweh will take care of his enemies. Jesus will comply with the Torah. He insists on persevering the realization of his social choices, he persists through suffering and his passion and is made to stand up again, he is resurrected. The way he has complied with the Torah makes his teachings and life the new Torah for his disciples. The Christians confess him as the Messiah. Jesus Christ shows in a “most excellent way” the power of the word of God for the salvation of all who believe as Dei Verbum 17 claims with Romans 1, 16. I confess Jesus Christ Messiah, because Go’d gives me the faith meditating “the writings of the New Testament” (Dei Verbum 17).

Notes on Luke 21, 1–4: The Widow’s coins.

After Jesus had cleaned the Temple by expulsing the dealers (Luke 19, 45-46), we see a poor widow entering the Temple. Does Jesus criticize the exploitation of the widow by the religious leaders who “devour the property of widows” (Luke 20, 47)? We have a pronouncement-story: Luke who always criticizes the Pharisees, makes Jesus respect and praise the widow, who gives all that she needs for her life.

Meditation on Luke 21, 1–4.

Luke does not make Jesus praise the widow. Jesus watches the widow and makes his bystanders listen to his commentary on the poor widow. Jesus watches the poor widow; he takes notice of the woman that lacks basic goods for making a good living. Jesus lives empathy with a vulnerable individual of Jerusalem’s society. Jesus takes notice of a poor widow. Jesus does not take notice of the impressive and beautiful power structure of the Temple. Jesus watches a poor widow. The sentence, Jesus watches the poor widow before the Temple, brought me peace in the meditation.

Follow up of the Meditation on Luke 21, 1-4.

Jesus teaches by watching and commenting on the poor widow. Mark (2, 41-44) makes Jesus teach only to his disciples and Matthew does not tell this story of the widow at all. This story is of central importance to Jesus’ teaching since his entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19, 28–40). He had been teaching with his words, watching the poor widow is a message too. First, we must notice that Jesus watches the poor widow, whereas his bystanders and disciples apparently had not taken notice of the poor women. The lesson Jesus must teach the people and his disciple is about the importance of taking notice of the poor woman. The two small coins of the widow link the Temple to Jesus. The vulnerable widow who puts two small coins into the treasury of the Temple and thereby attracts the attention of Jesus, indicates Jesus’ way to his passion and resurrection: He is on his way to give everything and to receive everything. The gift of the poor widow indicates that the kingdom of Go’d had begun developing on earth.

The treasury of the Temple should serve to help the Temple create justice and peace in the country. The Temple, the Jewish economic, cultural, political, and religious power center, does no longer produce justice and peace. If justice were reigning in Jerusalem, there would be no vulnerable widow who lacks the means for making a living. The Temple lost the strength, force and power, the will, determination, and vocation to secure the life of the observers of the Torah. The poor widow did not put the two small coins into the treasury of the Temple without hoping that Yahweh would restore justice and peace in Israel. In this sense, it is possible to claim that the poor widow gave the two small coins to Jesus and his project of restoring peace and justice in Israel. I am sure that Jesus got the point and was deeply touched and moved by this hopeful and vulnerable widow. The hope for peace and justice symbolized by the two small coins, constitute an effective investment, because this hope of the vulnerable widow makes Jesus go on realizing salvation. The gift of the two small coins reveals the existential and effective hope of a poor widow for peace and justice. For peace and justice, she gave “all she had to live on” (Luke 21, 4), all her life. Jesus did not speak to her but continuous investing his life into realizing peace and justice.

Had the poor widow really come to the Temple and had been watched by Jesus? Is the picture of the watching of the poor widow and commenting on her gift one of Luke’s Gospel narratives, one of those “fulfilled deeds” (Luke 1, 1) that constitute the faith account of Luke’s worldview of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? Or was that picture of the poor widow who had been watched by Jesus reported by some eye-witness and had passed from oral tradition to the written testimony? Many people had given reports on the “fulfilled deeds” before (Luke 1, 1). Luke tells that there had been eyewitnesses and servants of the word (Luke 1, 2). The people that served the word and were eyewitnesses of the “fulfilled deeds” were Christians. These women, men and queer had started believing in Jesus Christ as the Lord. It is part of the description of a Christian that the belief in the deeds, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ constitutes the Christian identity. The term resurrection we find expressed in faith- or confession sentences. A faith- or confession sentence is a fact. Have there been women, men and queer who had been able to claim deeds of Jesus that could have been validated by a two-valued logic of the truth-values true and false? The Gospels answer this question in a positive way:

There is Peter and there are brother Christians, says Peter, “who have been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was living with us” (Acts 1, 21). Peter prepares his brothers for the choice of a replacement for Juda, the traitor. After the death of Jesus, “Peter and John, James and Andrew, Phillip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Jude, son of James” went back to Jerusalem (Acts 1, 13). “With one heart, all these joined constantly in prayer, together with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1, 14). The eleven men that Luke lists with their names are not yet called Apostles. The women were not any more taking part in the election of the replacement for Juda. There was no woman candidate. Women give important speeches and testimonies in the Gospel of Luke. In Acts, Luke does not give the word to women anymore.

There were women, men and possibly queer who accompanied Jesus of Nazareth and who had given testimony to the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Nevertheless, modern exegesis tells that it is not possible to produce from the Gospels a biography of Jesus. The Gospel is not a book of modern historians interpreting history. The Gospel is a book that confirms the faith in Jesus Christ. What can we say about Jesus Christ? He lived and he died at the cross, his mother was Mary, his father Joseph and there were women, men, and possibly queer following him making “his way through towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. With him went the Twelve, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailment: Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their own resources” (Luke 7, 1-4).

Notes on Luke 21, 5–38: The Synoptic Apocalypse and the eschatological discourse (Bovon 2009, 165–209).

As the Gospels of Marc and Matthew, Luke presents an important speech about the future of history and the ends of time and earth before Jesus enters his passion.

The people still listen with sympathy to Jesus. Soon this will change (Luke 22, 47-53). The Synopsis of Kurt Aland shows most of the parallels in the New Testament and early fathers to this apocalyptic speech. Much from this speech we had already heard in Luke 17, 23–24. 26 – 27. 33. 34 – 35. 37.

From the letters of the New Testament, we learn that the first Christians were preoccupied by a common worry and concern: What will the junction of Jesus and the end of the times look like.

1 Thessalonians 5, 1–3, Acts 1, 6–8, Revelation 3,3 and Mark 13, 18–32 with parallels in Marc and Matthew are testimonies of the first Christian teaching. This teaching (Greek: katecheses) uses Christian apocalyptic themes that are based on the words of the Lord and adapted to the situation of the community (see for example the fall of Jerusalem in Luke 21, 20–24). At the same time, quotes from the Septuagint serve as prophecies of the apocalyptic events, “all that Scripture says must be fulfilled” (Luke 21, 22b).

In Luke 1, 35 the power (Greek: dunamis) of Go’d comes on Mary, in Luke 5, 17 the same power of Go’d was with Jesus for healing while teaching. In Luke 8, 46 Jesus is source of this power that heals the woman that touches him. In Luke 9, 1 Jesus passes this power on to his disciples and in Luke 24, 49 Jesus announces to his disciples that he will realize the promise of his father and give the power to them that is the Holy Spirit.

In Luke 21, 27 Jesus reveals his coming as Son of man, coming with “power and great glory”. Jesus will take his glory (Greek: doxa) after his suffering (Luke 24, 26). Eschatology - the second coming of the Son of man -, and Christology – Jesus entering in his glory after resurrection - are linked. Glory belongs to Go’d. Whenever these “things begin to take place” Jesus tells his disciples to “stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand” (Luke 21, 28). The verb “straighten up” or “erect” is the same as for the crippled widow in Luke 13, 11.

In Luke 21, 28 we learn that Jesus Christ announced to his disciples his second coming. Luke narrates with the belief perspective of the “fulfilled deeds” (Luke 1, 1) that is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Redemption or salvation of the disciples will come at the second coming of Christ.

Prayer is essential for realizing the hope to stand before the Son of man. Luke repeats in 21, 36 (“Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to hold your ground before the Son of man”) what Jesus had already indicated in 18,1. There is a parallel in Isaiah 24, 17–20 in the LXX. There are no parallels to the synoptic tradition. Codex Bezae reads the verb “stand” in the future, “you will stand” straight before the Son of man, that is a promise coming true. Luke 21, 36 uses the passive infinitive “to step before” (Bovon 2009, 197).

Concerning Luke 21, 37–38 – Jesus spending the night at the Mount of Olives and teaching all day long to a mass of people in the Temple - the tradition of testimonies is large (Mark 11, 15; 19; 27 parallel Matthew 21, 12.17.23; John 8, 1–2).

Meditation on Luke 21, 5–38: The eschatological discourse.

I assessed my integrity while practicing the sun salutation. I was meditating on the eschatological discourse in Luke. My theme of meditation was the crisis of the disciples, women, men and queer, that got evident during the passion of Jesus Christ. The passion and death of Jesus Christ traumatized the women, men and queer who had followed Jesus from Galilee and Judah up to Jerusalem. The cross is part of the first coming of the Son of man as is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I was meditating how Peter and the disciples experienced the Passion of Jesus Christ and the time until the resurrection. I call this experience the first apocalypses. Meditating this catastrophe for Peter and the disciples, the women, men and queer who had followed Jesus of Nazareth, brings sad peace and is a mourning awareness of empathy for the women, men and queer who were followers and now deplore the death of their leader.

Follow up of the mediation on Luke 21, 5–38.

Luke writes about the second coming of the Son of man (Luke 21, 28). Nevertheless, it is important to take notice of the historic fact that one of the Twelve, Judas, revealed to Jesus’ enemies where and how they could get him. It is also a fact that Peter denied knowing Jesus who had been taken prisoner. The male disciples fled the cross; they did not have the strength to relate to Jesus. They sat together hiding in Jerusalem and when Mary of Magdala and the other women told “the apostles” that Christ is risen, “they did not believe them” (Luke 24, 10-11).

I was meditating on the eschatological discourse of Jesus in Luke 21, 5–38 as if Jesus had prepared Peter and the other disciples for the terrible things that will happen soon to him. Jesus, their Messiah, will be taken away from them and will be destroyed by the cross. The reign of Go’d that Peter and the disciples had experienced as a beginning social reality apparently had come to an end. When Jesus dies “the sun’s light failed, so that darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The veil of the Sanctuary was torn right down in the middle” (Luke 23, 44-45), the apocalypses that Jesus had predicted (Luke 21, 5-38) was under way. Peter and the disciples could not escape this trauma, they were broken and could not stand straight, “parents and brothers, relations and friends” (Luke 21, 16) were gone and they were left alone agonizing over the loss of all their hopes. If ever they had dreamed of political power, the realization of the old logion of Mark 10, 45 and Matthew 20, 28 taught them differently: “For the Son of man himself came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”.

Meditation on Luke 21, 27- 28: The second coming of the Son of man, the second coming of Christ.

I had prepared the following two sentences for meditation:

This is a meditation on my death, on my personal apocalypses and the catastrophe of the destruction of my integrity and Jesus’ encouragement to hold my hope high because my liberation is at hand. This encouragement is for all women, men and queer on this earth who hope and continue to hope.

Before starting meditation, the next morning, I assessed my integrity and practiced the sun salutation. I was full of thoughts and disturbed by the concentration on how to express these thoughts. It took me about one hour to leave these thoughts on exegesis and interreligious dialogue and empty my consciousness. I entered meditation on the second coming of Christ, but really meditated the world’s daily apocalypses. I was aware that earthquakes are killing people, that tsunamis are killing people and a few days after the killing and hurting no television channel reports on the dead and the suffering of the survivors who cry for help.

I felt that my disappearing from earth is no problem. It is rather a relief for me. I am happy and in peace now, I do not need an afterlife. I experience my limited existence as no problem at all, there is no apocalypse with my life ending. I am granted peace and calm now in this meditation. I am meditating forty-five minutes, I am aware and deeply reassured of a feeling of security, my consciousness is relieved of all troubles.

Follow up of my meditation on Luke 21, 27-28.

Apocalypses are revealing and yet, the revealing is not happening this time. Therefore, the apocalypse does not happen. The killing continuous, people are tortured, there are wars, and women and children, the elders and sick are suffering oppression and violence as the most vulnerable of all. People betray each other, hate each other, make profit on each other, and kill each other. Journalists, women, men, and queer citizens are put to jail, are silenced, tortured and killed. Well, apocalypses are not going on, because there is little revealing of what is happening. Instead, people construct new temples with obsessive energies like robots and not like humans. My fitness studio promises to make people happy and advertises being a fitness temple. The Catholics of the whole world are paying money for the preservation of Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome that is the preservation of the symbol of the absolute juridical, executive, and political monarchic powers of the pope and his court. Saint Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is a manifestation of papal powers; it is a piece of art and abuse of power, not the expression of Go’d’s love that is manifested in the faith in Jesus Christ. The temple of Jerusalem is venerated, and people turn to the remaining walls as their Wailing Wall to ensure identity. In a certain sense the Temple is not destructed, and the temples are not.

It is clear to me that from my consciousness of feeling a state of peace and security nothing follows. Consciousness stays with me and not with others. Where are the others? Millions of them are suffering and not at all safe. Who will save them? If a Christian, a theologian, a non-Christian, a woman, man or queer speaks of salvation, she or he takes her or his feelings of happiness for more than it is. It is not a banality to feel happy, to enjoy one’s integrity and being at peace with oneself and the world. This does not at all mean that the world is in peace. This does not mean either that I will start interacting with others and the world for giving peace. I would want to give peace, but I will not be able to realize my social choice for peace and dignity with much of a success. Soon the storms of the daily apocalypses of suffering, of hate and aggression, of violent conflict will catch me again. I will turn to meditation and then try once more.