On the Sunday of March 23, 2025
LENTEN REPENT - LUKE 13:1 At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
13:2 He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
13:3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.13:4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem?
13:5 No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did."
It was a cruel age, they used to say. However, we cannot really pinpoint an era during human history, which was not a cruel era. Some of them was indeed a bit less cruel, like almost for a couple of years peace and prosperity had prevailed between two wars.
We boast with the latest achievements of the western civilization, but just in the last century we had two world wars, including the Holocaust and the nukes thrown over Japan, then the Korean War, then the Vietnam war, then Gulf War, then Iraq and Afghanistan plus the never-ending local conflict. And we cans see that the 21st century is hardly better, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The profound vision of the New Testament of the different eras of the human history is overarching, by stating that whatever happened or going to happen this world is not amendable, it will come to a final end, when everything will end, although it will still mark a new beginning.
It is written in the second letter of Apostle Peter, in chapter three that:
“10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be discovered. 11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”
Nothing new under the Sun, not even the cruelty of Pontius Pilate. The whole era and age was inherently cruel and bloodthirsty. For example, when Herod the King was still alive, though ill and soon dying, he had a Roman golden eagle, the very symbol of the Roman military rule in the name of the Roman God Jupiter, mounted on the very gate of the great Temple of the God of Israel. It stirred a fiery anger across Jerusalem.
In response, two Torah scribes, Judah and Mattanyah, leading a brave but small crowd, pulled the sacrilegious idol down and smashed it into pieces with axes. Herod immediately issued and warrant, and after their arrest, Herod, boiling with anger, had these two men burnt alive at the stake, and had an other forty of their young students executed, without a trial.
Herod died quite soon after that with a horrible death, having fatal agonies for half a year, as Josephus the historian noted: Herod, himself, in his last years, was stricken for his vicious sins with excruciating pain, slowly putrefying body, worms breeding flesh, chocking on corps-like breath, as it is written that “evil shall kill the wicked.”
When his heir, his son, the next King in Jeruselam, Herod Archelaus ascended on the throne as an ethnarch, the still angry crowd gathered in the temple compound, grieving the death of the Torah scribes and the students.
As the crowd multiplied on the festival of the Pesach, Archelaus sent his army and had three thousand menslaughtered. Consequently, recurring rebellions broke out, and Varus, the Roman general, had to come three times from Antiochia to crush them with cruel force, and had another two-thousand Jews crucified.
During the reign of Archelaus many revolts were crushed by the Romans, but finally the Emperor exiled Archelaus to the town of Vienne in Gaul, today in France. Right before his falling from grace, Archelaus had seen ten ears of ripe wheat in a dream, as they got chewed up and gorged by ten oxen. He called for interpreters, but no one was able or brave enough to tell him the meaning of it.
Then he gave tokens to Simon the Essene seer to speak his mind freely. Then Simon told him, that the ten ears of wheat mean, that the ten years of his ruling are over in Judea, and now it came to its end, as his years of reign were devoured.
After the removal of Archelaus, Caesar August put Jerusalem under a Roman procurator, Coponius, and Judea instantly became a Roman province. That is how, after a while, Pontius Pilate became the Roman Procurator in Judea.
The emperor also ordered the new governor of Syria, Quirinius, to conduct a property census, which also meant the full enforcement of the Imperial Law in Judea, and it also meant the onset of the Gospel stories.
It is mentioned by Josephus that early in his governing Pilate used to sent disguised soldiers with daggers among the Temple crowds to assassin any trouble makers. Later on Pilate also used crush any revolting by brutal force. Cruelty was in the breathing air of the era.
Jesus told his disciples, that you must understand that even worse time is coming, when the temple and the whole city will be destroyed, so you must repent. The judgment over the city is already rendered by Heaven, it is not alterable, but you have to pray, fast, and repent in order to become admissible into Heaven after this life.
As John the Baptist warned his generation: “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is being cut down and thrown into the fire.”
In the tradition there is a parable where the king went to his palace and entered the banquet hall, and saw there dozens of big wineskins, inflated with mere air, occupying almost the half of the banquet hall. The banquet was close to be coming, thus the king had the wineskins deflated and put them in an outer storage, until the decision of their later fate .
Which means, that the Heavenly King came to see the banquet hall in his palace, to see whether it is appropriately prepared for the banquet, which is the World to Come, when the Kingdom of God becomes visible.
The wineskins are the human souls, which must be filled with the Love of God. Whosoever will be found of lacking the Love of God, will be put aside, and cannot be the part of the banquet.
Everyone must repent, the righteous and the wicked too. The sages tought that the first human was created alone at the very beginning for the sake of the righteous and for the sake of the wicked, in order the righteous might not say ours is the righteous heredity, thus we do not need to repent, as we are righteous by heritage, and also that the wicked might not say ours is the evil heredity, there is no reason for us to repent, as we are not able to overcome our wickedness, as it is our inherent heritage.
The righteous must repent against complacency, the wicked must repent for decency.May the Lord help us learn the Love of God,may the Love of God help us find the WAY, manifested in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. AMEN
