“THIRD LAST SUNDAY 2024”
Saint Matthew 24: 15-28
3rd Last Sunday: November 10 Anno Domini 2024
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
You have, you do, and you will see the “abomination of desolation.” Jesus said so: “behold, I have told you before.” Unless of course Holy Scripture, for you, is only past historical truth—something to be memorized at best or forgotten, or never read, at worst. You always need to be on guard and ready for evil’s swarming attack; evil’s subtile and clever entanglements of you, your soul!
Many of you are arm-chair and amateur historians and Scripture historians. And that is good. You should know The Bible better than anything else you have ever read. You should read: “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” But you cannot eat the Scriptures like Ezekial, or Jeremias’ metaphorical consummation. But you this morning will actually and truly eat and drink The God/Man! History is good, the Holy Mass and The Liturgy is the best.
This Church is never a mere college or discussion and debating society; it is the Wedding Feast of The Lamb—your banqueting preparation for The Heavenly Eternal Supper.
Past events occurred and will always be true and beneficial for your repentance and belief. The abomination of desolation? Well, everything that pulls you away from God, that creates and sustains unbelief and rejection—SIN, rebellion. So, the abomination is the devil and his demons; it is the pagan world and the allures of mammon and dull, drowsy sleeping; your old sinful nature that looks to yourself, your feelings, your ego, your will, and your desire to “be as gods.” So, the entire Bible is full of abominations of desolation, which serve as warnings and guideposts to you The New Testament people of Christ.
The abomination was Adam’s fall; Eve’s capitulation to the lie. The abomination was all of the world’s evil, all of the people’s thralldom to Satan, save for 8 people at the time of the flood. The abomination was the lusting for self-power, the desire to return to Egypt, and the rebellion against Moses—which was only the rejection of God—for 40 years. It is not so much that Moab, Edom, Philistia, Midian, etc., etc., rejected God, but rather that His own flock resisted and pushed away His tender Mercy; His Grace. The Old Testament flock rejected the Judges, and hence The Lord. They were chastised. The first Israel abandoned God to worship Moloch, Baal, and Ashtaroth. That was a penultimate abomination. They were exiles first to Assyria and then to Babylon. The Kings which God had given them for protection and the propagation of The Faith, of the coming Messias, were shunted aside and idols and pagan altars were erected God’s Holy Temple. Abomination. Children were sacrificed, children were cannibalized. Abomination.
But the Prophet Daniel was given by The Word of God to look to the future—not His time—but the time of Jesus—and your time—the time of End.
Who is Daniel talking about? We will not go down the “rabbit-hole” of the millennialist and dispensationalist heretics. Was it Antiochus IV? Sure. But how does that knowledge toughen up and prepare the “12,” or any of you?
Jesus is talking about the “book-ends” of His sacrificial death—the reason for His atoning work on the cross. He is predicting both the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD—a horrible abomination—and His final Advent—an eternal abomination for all the goats—the satanic herd of the evil foe. But at the heart, in the middle, stands The Cross—Christ crucified to pay for all the abominations, all the damning rejecting and sinning against The Way, The Truth, and The Life.
There, of course, as you all know, been many, countless, abominations since Calvary. The martyrs in Scripture, the Apostolic age, the early Church, all the long centuries until today. In the last century and now, right now, abominations overflow. You know.
But these works of the devil have no real originating with Satan. He can only perform illusory, false miracles. All of the world’s pain and abominations come from you, and from me, from us. Our sins, our sin, is abominable.
Like Adam, the sinful, natural, inclination is to become spiritually comatose, or to deny our abominable sinful natures—to run and hide in the fig-leaves of the world and the self. Or, to become Pharisees and rely on our own half-hearted and futile attempts to be good, to work hard, to be better than all of those that we hate and despise.
So, the good news to you, Jesus for you, is that while your “old Adam” seeks to first stay in the condemned old Jerusalem of sin, and to flee from God into a fake Judaea of modernist secularity, Jesus did not flee. Jesus rode into the devil’s lair, all the way to the abominable crucifix. You seek to preserve all your valued possessions but Christ let the Roman executioners strip Him of His shirt and cloak. Such abominations were committed upon Jesus’ pure and holy Body, such abominable pierces and punctures to produce His Holy Blood; The Blood that washed over you at your + cleansing, and that you will drink shortly, that it is Gospel clear that Christ for you, became the ultimate desolation, He became the true Abomination by, as Paul speaks: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us” [2 Cor. 5.21]. Peter echoes this: “He himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” [1 Pe. 2.24].
The blessed Gospel—Jesus became Abomination on the tree so that in the eyes of The Father you are now Holy and Pure—children of Grace.
Think on this when you are confronted and besieged by “great tribulation.” Think of that abominable cross, which by God has been transformed into the Glorious Tree of Life and Immortality by The Savior’s true enthronement as Lord and God!
But telling you to do something, even when it is Godly, is Law—we end with Evangel—Jesus for you.
Peter speaks: “by His wounds you have been healed.” “Take eat This is My Body; take drink This is My Blood.”
You no longer eat the forbidden fruit. You eat God in His Sacrament. By eating Jesus’ Body, you become His Body The Church. Forever His Body is, you the body are; there will you eagles be gathered together.
In The Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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