Understanding the providential purpose of God

33C | 16 NOVEMBER 2025 | LUKE 21: 5-19

No place on earth has meant so much to so many and, as a result, has been so fiercely fought over, than the Temple site in Jerusalem. Its history is one of interminable conflict, even into our own day. The Temple referred to in this gospel, the third to occupy the site, was re-built by the murderously venal tyrant, Herod. At the time, it was the largest and most awe-inspiring religious monument in the world. Glittering with gold and shimmering with white stone, it dominated both the city and the surrounding countryside for miles around. Its magnificence staggered even Titus, the hard-nosed Emperor whose armies razed it to the ground in 70AD, only six years after its completion.

It is impossible now to grasp the horror that must have been felt when the Temple was destroyed. It would have seemed that not only the Jewish nation, but the world itself was ending. The levelling of the Temple led to the dispersal of the Jewish people, an event that shaped so much of Judaism’s history since, as well as the spread of Christianity throughout the empire.

The reference to the Temple in this gospel comes in the context of an apocalyptic discourse, which always occurs in the cycle of readings as we draw near to the end of the liturgical year. ‘Apocalupsis’ in Greek means ‘revelation’ and the purpose of this literary genre was encouragement in difficult times, especially in times of persecution, by pointing to the ultimate future when, under God’s providence, all would be resolved, and his purposes would be fulfilled. This particular passage was written when the fledgling Christian Church first began to experience hostility that would soon become outright hatred. Christians were despised by both pagans and Jews as irreligious upstarts, disturbers of settled and sacred ways, religious revolutionaries.

The Roman historian, Tacitus (56- 120AD), says that they were charged with inciting hatred of all things ancient and pious, even of the human race itself; and their gatherings behind closed doors were rumoured to involve sinister rites, including cannibalism. In one sense, of course, the end-times to which apocalyptic literature draws our attention are where we all live even now. Each of us faces the end of our own world daily, in that every day is potentially our last. The world passes away every night, as we entrust our lives to God in sleep, the day having been done, never to return. Our world comes to end in another sense when we lose those closest to us: a parent, a husband or wife, a sibling, a friend, worst of all, a child. In accord with the seeming paradox that the pain of loss corresponds to love’s depth, we live the rest of our lives with an absence that can never be filled.

Apocalyptic literature was intended to help us keep both a sense of the largest possible picture, and a sense of each individual moment’s importance. It was intended to steer us clear of both despairing fatalism and anxiety-ridden activism, both of which induce in us that fearfulness and narrowness of mind from which most of our sins arise. The name for that largest possible picture is providence, God’s unchanging and unceasing care for us at every moment of our existence. Only by entrusting ourselves and our lives to his providence can we find the right balance between detachment and concern, having both confidence to make bold plans and wisdom to sit lightly to all our plans. And, perhaps most important, and certainly most needed of all, only God’s providence can reassure us that not even our worst mistakes or most ingrained, abiding failings can hinder God from bringing his good purposes to their fulfilment, for us and the whole of creation. Without such trust, it is impossible to embrace the real lives God has given us, as opposed to the fantasy, virtual selves we’re encouraged to create.

Without such trust, it is impossible to grow where we are planted, rather than forever peering over the fence or into the future; without such trust, it is impossible to live our lives fully here and now, doing whatever is set before us with cheerful hearts. The Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart (1260- 1328), says that holiness consists precisely in just that: that is, doing what we must do next, but with delight. The purpose of this gospel, then, is neither to put the fear of God into us nor to bludgeon us into good works through fear. Rather, its purpose is to dispel all fear and all fretfulness, by reassuring us that nothing can happen to us that is outside God’s providential purpose. And his purpose is our ultimate, lasting good in his presence.