ONE STONE UPON ANOTHER

ONE STONE UPON ANOTHER

The Thirteen went down from the Temple to make their daily ascent to the Mount of Olives. One of the Disciples (who could it have been?—perhaps John, son of Salome, still rather childish and naïvely full of wonder at what he saw? Or Judas Iscariot, with his respect for wealth?) Said to Jesus, "Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!" (Matt. 13:1)

The Master turned to look at the high walls faced with marble which the ostentatious calculation of Herod had built up on the hill and said, "Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down." (Vs.2)

The admiring exclamation suddenly died. No one dared answer, but perplexed and surprised, each of them continued to turn over in his mind these words. Hard words for the ears of those carnal-minded Jews, for the narrow hearts of those ambitious peasants. He whom they loved had said in these last days many other hard words, hard to hear, hard to under­stand, hard to believe. But they did not remember any other words as hard as these. They knew that He was the Christ and that He was to suffer and die, but they hoped that He would rise again at once in the glorious victory of the new David, to give abundance to all Israel and to award the greatest prizes and power to them, faithful to Him in the dangerous wanderings of His poor days. But if the world was to be com­manded by Judea, Judea was to be commanded by Jerusalem, and the seats of command were to be in the Temple of the great King. It was occupied today by the faithless Sadducees, the hypocritical Pharisees, the traitorous Scribes, but Christ was to drive them away to give their places to His apostles. How then could the Temple be destroyed, splendid memorial of the kingdom in the past; hoped-for rock of the new King­dom?

This talk of stones was harder than a stone for Simon called the Rock and for his companions. Had not John the Baptist said that God could change the stones of the Jordan into sons of Abraham? Had not Satan said that the Son of God could change the stones of the desert to loaves of wheat bread? Had not Jesus Himself said while He was passing the walls of Jerusalem that those very stones, in place of men, would have shouted out greetings and sang hymns? And was it not He who had made the stones fall from the hands of His enemies, the stones which they had taken up to kill Him? And had He not made them fall from those who accused the adulteress?

But the Disciples could not understand this talk about the stones of the Temple. They could not and they would not un­derstand that those great massive stones, quarried out pa­tiently from the mountains, drawn from afar by oxen, squared and prepared by chisels and mallets, put one upon an­other by masters of the art to make the most marvelous Temple of the universe; that these stones, warm and brilliant in the sun, should be torn apart once more and pulverized into ruins.

They had scarcely arrived at the Mount of Olives, and Christ had only had time to sit down opposite to the Temple, when their curiosity burst out:

"Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?" (Matt. 24:3)

The answer was the discourse on the Last Things, the second Sermon on the Mount. At the beginning of His work, He had explained how the soul must be transformed to found the Kingdom; now at death's door He taught what the punishment of the stubborn would be and in what manner He would come again.

This discourse, less understood than the other, and even more forgotten, is not, as it is generally believed, the answer to one question only. The Disciples had put two questions, "When shall these things be?" That is, the ruin of the Tem­ple; and "What shall be the signs of Thy coming?" There are two answers to these two questions. Jesus first describes the events which will precede the destruction of Jerusalem, and then He describes the signs of His second coming. The prophetic discourse, although it is read all in one piece in the Gospels, had two parts. The prophecies are two, quite dis­tinct from each other; the first was fulfilled before the end of Jesus' generation, about forty years after His death. The second has not yet been fulfilled, and now before the pass­ing of our own generation the first signs are being seen.