A Sudden End  (March 13, 2016)

 

1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”  (Luke 13:1-5)

 

        On March thirteenth, nineteen-hundred twenty-eight, exactly eighty-eight years ago today, the second greatest disaster in California history occurred when the St. Francis Dam experienced a catastrophic failure forty miles north of Los Angeles. The resulting flood drowned a total of four-hundred fifty people and ended the career of the famous architect and civil engineer William Mullholland, who was in charge of the dam’s construction. In a single moment of time the lives of all those involved, including their extended families and friends, were changed in a way they could not have been predicted or prevented. Still, even though no one, at that moment, could have predicted or prevented this disaster, they might have been prepared—which is a warning to us all.

        In the verses cited above, unique to Luke’s gospel, Jesus responded to a set of recent disasters that had been brought to his attention by some tale-bearers who, it seems, had concluded that the people involved in these disasters [some were slaughtered in the temple, while others died under a collapsing tower] had died through their own fault; these tale-bearers seemed to believe, as many still do today, that people “make their own luck,” that people who find themselves in unpleasant straits or suffering some disaster are in those situations due to their own lack of diligence; it's their own fault.

        Jesus, however, implies that all of us, through no fault of our own, are on the verge of perishing! For we are all facing a day of the Lord when our master will return to this earth at an hour we do not expect and a time of which we are not aware.  (Matthew 24:50) The wise servant is the one who spends his or her days getting ready for the inevitable day of disaster from which no one will escape!