My Favorite Verses - Vol IV (Nov 16 to Feb 17)

Matthew 24:2 … All will be thrown down
(12/31/2016)
“Truly, I tell You, not one stone will be left here upon the other;
all will be thrown down.” ~ Jesus (Matthew 24:2)
This verse contains three primary implications of note: Initially, it is a
general reference to the latent impermanence of all moments and all matter within
them (in a similar vein to the Buddhist beliefs about the same – beliefs which were
already popular along the Silk Road that connected Judea & China in Jesus’ day, and thus
beliefs with which Jesus was almost certainly familiar) … Secondly, it also alludes to
the overall inevitability of the collapse of religious dogma. Not only was this
collapse foretold in the Old Testament scriptures (scriptures with which Jesus was
quite familiar – see Isaiah 54:10, also Jeremiah 31:31-34), but it was also a collapse
easily predictable to anyone having Jesus’ level of understanding of human
sociology & the human psyche … Thirdly, it is also a specific reference to what
Jesus’ imminent crucifixion would do to the Jewish religious structures of his day.
NOTE as
well that Jesus
quite obviously
did not anticipate
the magnitude of
Paul's subsequent
missionary work
– neither the
magnitude of
Paul’s lack of
comprehension
of The Way of
Christ, nor the
magnitude with
which Paul was
able to spread his
“false gospel”
during his life,
nor the
magnitude with
which a large portion of humanity would then go on to cling to Paul’s gospel and thereby reject
Jesus’ own “Good News” … Maybe Jesus was simply naïve in this regard – or maybe he simply
had a far greater Faith in his message and in humanity overall. Either way, he quite obviously
drastically overestimated the ability of humans to choose Love over fear -- at least as far as
present day religious dogma is concerned. But then again, we are still a very young species, and
we are currently behaving in a manner that is rapidly bringing on a mass extinction event that
will undoubtedly "throw down" the majority of all we have built so far, and the majority of
those "left behind" will undoubtedly be forced to learn from our current mistakes if they are to
survive at all. So maybe we will wake up to Jesus' Way of Selfless Love after all -- Maybe it
will simply take a bit longer than Jesus originally thought.
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