Christ’s Second Coming.

(Luke 17:20-37).

To the Pharisees’ question as to when God’s Kingdom will arrive, the Lord replies: “The Kingdom of God does not come with observation, nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the Kingdom of God is within you.” There is no allocated place on earth for God’s Kingdom, because it is not of material substance: the essence of God’s Kingdom is in the inner restoration and enlightenment of people. The Pharisees saw in the term “God’s Kingdom,” as an earthly reign of the Messiah, which they expected would rid them of the Roman yoke. The Lord instills into them that it is a spiritual kingdom, an inner one and not an outward, earthly one that is sensate — and that it has already arrived. “Within you” has a dual meaning: 1) God’s Kingdom has already arrived — it is among you, among the Jewish people, even though because of your spiritual blindness you cannot see it; God’s Kingdom is invisible to the human eye, because it settles in a person’s soul. Having spoken on the approach of God’s Kingdom, which will only be like a spiritual leaven, inner transforming the world, the Lord turns to the misfortunes that await the Jews. To those who haven’t noted the advent of His Kingdom (destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in the year 70) and of the clear revelation of His Kingdom, which will arrive with His Second Coming in all His glory. It will be like lightning that lights the sky from one end to the other. Just as unexpectedly as the day of the Great Flood in Noah’s times and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Lots era, so will be Christ’s coming to judge Jerusalem before its destruction — and His Second Coming before the end of the world, to judge all peoples. You would then have to go toward the Lord, without looking back on the condemned world akin to Lot’s wife — because it is then that the final separation will take place between the righteous and sinners, even though that night they shared the same lodge, or the same activity. Stunned by these words, the disciples asked when all this will happen. The Lord answered them with a saying: “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together” (Habakkuk 1:8) i.e. just like predatory birds gather where there is corpse, God’s judgment will appear where the inner life has died and moral decay had set in.