LUKE - CHAPTER 13
A
Bible Study - Commentary by Jim Melough
Copyright
2001 James Melough
13:1. “There were present at that season some
that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices.”
This chapter continues the warning of the need to repent and be converted in
order to escape judgment, but the first application is to Israel, for it is
apparent that in the first two incidents God is presenting typological
pictures of the judgment about to overtake Israel, and which fell in AD 70.
Since the Galilaeans were fanatically patriotic, as were all the Jews, it is
generally believed that these referred to may have been guilty of some
insurrection which resulted in Pilate’s having them slaughtered even while
they were in the act of offering sacrifices to God, but nothing is known about
this massacre except what is recorded here, nor is it necessary to know
further details in order to read the spiritual lesson.
Their having been killed by the Roman governor even as they worshiped, was but
the foreshadowing of what was about to befall
Israel. She too, busy with all the details of an empty religious ritual,
while in heart very far from God, was similarly destroyed by the Romans under
Titus in AD 70. God was trying to show them that adherence to a mere
religious ritual was no protection from His judgment. But the lesson applies
to the Gentile as well as the Jew, and is no less applicable today than it was
then. The warning is not only to apostate Christendom, but to every man whose
only hope of heaven rests in mere religion apart from faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ as Savior.
There is, however, also an application to every professed believer. It is
imperative that our faith is resting in Christ and His work completed at
Calvary, and not in our performance of some religious ritual such as baptism,
or participation in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper each week. What
happened to the Galilaeans, and to Israel in AD 70 are previews of what will
be in the coming Tribulation era, but clearly the warning goes beyond every
earthly judgment, and points to that terrible eternal judgment awaiting every
man who dies without having trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
13:2. “And Jesus answering said unto them,
Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans,
because they suffered such things?”
13:3. “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish.”
It happens not infrequently among religious people that any calamity befalling
others tends to be viewed by those unaffected, as a Divine judgment for
exceptional sin. The Lord immediately dispelled such a notion relative to
the death of the Galilaeans. They were no better and no worse than others who
weren’t slain; and the lesson we ourselves must learn is not to make such
judgments relative to what befalls others. Calamity short of death may also
be God’s method of refining genuine faith. It is better to pray for those
affected by calamity, rather than to pass judgment as to the cause of it; and
when it comes to us, to ask whether it may perhaps be God’s judgment upon sin,
and if honest examination of our lives reveals no known sin, then to accept it
simply as God’s refining of our faith for our ultimate blessing.
The Lord stressed the imperative of repentance (which of course involves faith
in Christ) as the only way for men to escape the eternal judgment of God.
13:4. “Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in
Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that
dwelt in Jerusalem?”
13:5. “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish.”
As with the slain Galilaeans, the only information we have relative to these
eighteen is what is given here, but again, further details aren’t needed.
This simply emphasizes the lessons connected with the deaths of the Galilaeans,
the lesson the Lord would have all men learn being that the only place of
safety from God’s judgment is in the Lord Jesus Christ; and the dramatic
suddenness with which death overtook them points up the uncertainty of life,
and the imperative of trusting in Christ while there is still time, as it is
written, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the
day of salvation,” 2 Cor 6:2. Tomorrow may be too late.
It is interesting to note that the first Biblical mention of a tower has an
evil connotation. It is in Ge 11:4 which records the building of the tower of
Babel by those who rebelled against God’s command to spread themselves abroad
over the earth. It is instructive also to find that in a good connection God
uses a tower as the figure of Himself as man’s place of refuge, e.g., 2 Sa
22:3,51; Ps 18:2. It may be therefore that beyond the literal fact of
eighteen having been killed by the collapsed tower, is the spiritual truth
that all who are depending on anything except faith in Christ to take them to
heaven, will also perish amid the “collapsed tower” of their false hope.
Siloam, in the vicinity of Jerusalem which means dual peace shall be
taught: lay (set) ye double peace, means a missile (as sent),.
This adds further details to the symbolic picture, for connected with a
missile is the thought of swift and sudden destruction. The sudden
destruction of the eighteen, occurring in the midst of the very place that
speaks of peace, is the symbolic announcement of the truth that sudden
destruction will come upon all those living in the enjoyment of a false peace
based on a false hope, as it is written in connection with the Lord’s coming
to execute judgment, “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden
destruction cometh upon them ... and they shall not escape” 1 Th 5:3.
13:6. “He spake also this parable; A certain man
had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon,
and found none.”
The vine, the fig tree, and the olive tree are all biblical symbols of Israel,
the vine representing her as she was in the past, “Thou hast brought a vine
out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it,” Ps 80:8. The
fig tree represents her as she is during this present Church age; and the
olive tree, as she will be in the Millennium.
The fig tree in the context of this parable is a picture of Israel as she was
in the time of Christ - fruitless, this same truth being emphasized in Mt
21:19, “And when he (the Lord) saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and
found nothing thereon, but leaves only (symbol of mere empty profession), and
said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently
the fig tree withered away.”
But her ultimate salvation in the Tribulation and in the Millennium is also
pictured under the figure of a fig tree. In Mt 24, the Lord gives detailed
warnings relative to what will be prior to the inauguration of His millennial
kingdom, declaring in verses 30-33, “And then shall appear the sign of the Son
of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other. Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet
tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye,
when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.”
This coming to life after the death of winter, portrays the coming
resurrection of Israel following the long winter of the past two thousand
years, when like the vine in winter, she has given every appearance of being
dead.
13:7. “Then said he unto the dresser of his
vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and
find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?”
The dresser here represents the Lord Jesus Christ as led in everything by the
Holy Spirit, and the three years may correspond to the three years during
which He had been engaged in His public ministry to Israel, and as God’s
Representative had sought in vain for the spiritual fruit that accompanies
faith.
13:8. “And he answering said unto him, Lord, let
it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:”
13:9. “And if it bear fruit, well: and if not,
then after that thou shalt cut it down.”
This portrays the patience of God. He would expend still further effort to
lead the rebellious nation to repentance, but sadly, the effort was wasted.
Instead of repentance, there was increased rebellion, culminating in the
crucifixion of God’s Son, and the resultant reluctant cutting down of the fig
tree (Israel) in AD 70.
There is, however, a practical application that reaches beyond Israel, and
applies to every professed believer: the evidence of a genuine conversion is
the production of spiritual fruit, as it is written, “Ye shall know them by
their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so
every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth
evil fruit.... Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them,” Mt 7:16-20. The
profession of faith that isn’t accompanied by a changed life, is suspect.
13:10. “And he was teaching in one of the
synagogues on the sabbath.”
The synagogues were buildings where the Jews throughout the world met to
worship, pray, and read the Scriptures, and to deal with matters of
discipline, etc. The Lord often taught in the synagogues, and the very fact
that He did teach as frequently as He did, ought to remind us of the
importance of teaching today.
13:11. “And, behold, there was a woman which had
a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no
wise lift up herself.”
The woman seems to be also a picture or type of Israel. Eighteen factorizes
to 2 x 32, so that the eighteen years speak of the fact that the
nation will be healed only when she has experienced a double resurrection:
first, physically as a nation in the Tribulation; and then spiritually also in
the Tribulation when a believing remnant will be resurrected out of spiritual
death through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, becoming then the new Israel
that will enter the Millennium. That physical resurrection is necessary due
to the fact that for almost two thousand years, since AD 70, she has had no
corporate existence as a nation, it being only in 1948 that her national
rebirth occurred, her growth as a national entity continuing to the present
through the numbers of Jews who are daily returning to Palestine, that renewal
of her national existence being one of the warning signs that we are in the
closing days of the Church age. The Lord could return today!
The woman’s bowed condition pictures Israel bowed down under the unbearable
weight of law-keeping by which she has foolishly hoped to be justified. The
impossibility of her straightening herself up declares the impossibility of
Israel delivering herself by her own power.
Since, however, Israel is God’s mirror for the whole world, the lesson also
being taught is that all men are similarly bowed down under the weight of
trying to justify themselves by law-keeping or adherence to the requirements
of whatever religious system they happen to be involved with. There is no
salvation for any man apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; nor does any
man have the power to save himself.
In this crippled woman we are being shown the present earthly effects of sin:
it blights lives; but in the dropsied man of 14:2 God bids us see the eternal
results of sin: it brings men down to the pit: first hell, and then eternally
the torment of the lake of fire.
13:12. “And when Jesus saw her, he called her to
him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”
13:13. “And he laid his hands on her: and
immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.”
The Lord will similarly call a repentant remnant out of the apostate nation in
the Tribulation, and that remnant, cleansed from sin through faith in Him,
will become the new Israel that will enjoy the millennial blessings so long
forfeited by disobedience and unbelief. The woman’s praise foreshadows that
which will be the grateful response of the Tribulation remnant, and which
ought to be the response of everyone who knows his sins forgiven. But whether
for a nation or an individual, the method of salvation remains the same: there
must be response to the Lord’s call given through the Gospel, for salvation
must be received as a free-willed acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as
Savior. No one is predestinated to be saved, nor will the Lord compel any
sinner to trust in Christ.
13:14. “And the ruler of the synagogue answered
with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said
unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them
therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.”
The ruler’s response portrays the attitude, not only of unbelieving Israel,
but of every man who insists on being justified by law-keeping, or by obeying
the dogma of his own particular creed. The fatal flaw in all such methods is
that they reject totally or in part the sacrifice of Christ, and give the man
himself credit for providing his own salvation in whole or in part. All such
ways are anathema to God.
The stupidity of the Jewish leader’s reply lies in the fact that there is no
logical connection between the work that men might do in the six working days
of the week, and that miraculous work which only the Lord could do at any time
without effort. The hypocritical leader ignored the miracle that had just
been performed, and instead of seeing in it proof that this was the Christ,
and falling at His feet in worship, attempted instead to make the Lord a
lawbreaker. This is the consistent mark of the self-righteous religionist.
He will exalt himself, and thereby diminish the value of Christ’s sacrifice.
It is interesting to note that he lacked the courage to reprimand the Lord
directly, but did so indirectly by addressing his rebuke to the people.
13:15. “The Lord then answered him, and said,
Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his
ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?”
In the original, the word hypocrite is in the plural, for the ruler of
the synagogue wasn’t the only one there who had the same antagonistic attitude
towards the Lord.
The implication couldn’t be clearer. They would relieve their animals’ thirst
on the sabbath day, but would deny relief to this poor woman who had suffered
for eighteen years. They would have done to her what they wouldn’t do to
their animals: make her suffer for another day an infirmity worse than one
day’s thirst. Relative to spiritual things there is nothing more irrational
than the unconverted mind.
But beyond the literal, lies the spiritual message. The Lord would have men
enter here and now, through faith alone, into the joy of His salvation, while
the self-righteous religionist would deny anyone that pleasure, failing, in
his own delusion to see that if a man doesn’t know the joy of sins forgiven
through faith, he isn’t forgiven at all. He who is living in anticipation of
a salvation to be earned by works, will make the terrible discovery, too late,
that anything, except faith in Christ’s finished work, leads to hell, not
heaven.
13:16. “And ought not this woman, being a
daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be
loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?”
In identifying Satan as the cause of the woman’s infirmity, the Lord was
teaching the greater truth that Satan is the author of sin, and therefore of
the spiritual state of all men as portrayed by her bowed condition. It is he,
the father of lies, who teaches the lie that men can be saved from sin by
works rather than (or plus) faith.
The Lord’s referring to her as a daughter of Abraham implies that her faith
had not only brought her physical but spiritual healing also. So will it be
with the believing Tribulation remnant.
13:17. “And when he had said these things, all
his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious
things that were done by him.”
The shame of His adversaries, and the rejoicing of the people, extend beyond
that day, now almost two thousand years ago, and point to what will be on that
day when He returns in power and glory to judge the nations, banish His foes,
and establish His kingdom. Then His foes will not only be ashamed, but
banished into hell, while the believing Jews and Gentiles emerging from the
Tribulation, will rejoice.
13:18. “Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom
of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?”
What is introduced by this verse isn’t the description of the actual kingdom,
but rather, the outward character of it during this present Church age. It is
marked by genuine faith, but also false profession.
13:19. “It is like a grain of mustard seed,
which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great
tree (bush); and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.”
This speaks of the abnormal growth of the great harlot church which has
developed, and which has overshadowed the true Church for the greater part of
the past two thousand years. The fowls (literally, and very significantly,
vultures, unclean birds of prey) nesting in the branches, point to the evil
spiritual character of this religious travesty, for in Scripture fowls are
always indicative of the evil spirits which do Satan’s bidding. Behind the
outward glorious facade of the great world church are Satan and his evil
minions controlling the men who seem to control the system, but who are
themselves simply his deluded agents, all of them spiritual vultures preying
on the souls of men.
A further portrait of this evil system is presented in Re 18:2 which describes
its ultimate destruction at the hand of God, “Babylon the great is fallen, is
fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul
spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”
13:20. “And again he said, Whereunto shall I
liken the kingdom of God?”
13:21. “It is like leaven, which a woman took
and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”
In Scripture leaven is always symbolic of evil, and in the present context, of
evil doctrine, for the woman represents the great false church, while the meal
is the symbol of the written Word. Her hiding the leaven in the meal is the
symbolic announcement of the truth that the false church has corrupted the
Word by her surreptitious mingling of it with her false doctrine, no part of
it having escaped her pernicious activity. The woman is primarily the evil
Roman system which rules Christendom today, with apostate Protestantism her
abettor.
13:22. “And he went through the cities and
villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem.”
The Lord always had Jerusalem before Him, the place where once He had dwelt in
the midst of His people, but the place from which He had long since departed,
because the people had first departed from Him. Now He was going to present
Himself for the last time, but the city was going to seal its doom by
rejecting and crucifying Him, thus bringing upon itself the terrible judgment
which came in AD 70 when the Romans, as God’s agents of judgment, brought
Jewish autonomy to an end as they destroyed Temple and city, slaughtered
thousands, sold thousands of others as slaves, leaving only a few who escaped
to wander like Cain as fugitives amongst the hated Gentiles for the past two
millennia.
It is a fearful thing to exhaust God’s patience, and to become instead the
object of His wrath.
13:23. “Then said one unto him, Lord, are there
few that be saved? And he said unto them,”
13:24. “Strive to enter in at the strait gate:
for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.”
13:25. “When once the master of the house is
risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to
knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and
say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:”
The direct answer was that few are saved, but the Lord would impress upon His
audience the imperative of being one of those few, because the alternative is
attended by dreadful eternal consequences.
Strive, which is related to the word agonize, and conveys the idea of
struggling mightily, should be understood in context. There is no thought of
God’s making it difficult for one to be saved, but rather that Satan will use
every weapon in his arsenal to keep a soul from Christ. Those seeking to
enter, but without success, are they who on earth allowed other things to come
between them and the Savior, and now when it is too late, will seek to enter
but without being able. The Master will have closed the door! During their
earthly lives they refused His gracious invitation to enter in through the
door which stood open, He having opened it through His death on the cross so
that they might without effort enter heaven, but once He has shut that door it
will not be opened.
And He sounded the warning that there is a limit to the time within which one
can be saved. As already noted, Israel was perilously close to the end of
that time when the Lord issued His warning. God warns all men, “My Spirit
shall not always strive with man,” Ge 6:3. Once a man crosses that invisible
line which separates God’s mercy from His wrath, he cannot be saved. As in
the time of Noah, there came a day when he and his family were bidden to enter
the ark, and then God shut the door, and it wasn’t opened again until after
the flood and destroyed all those who had refused to enter in God’s time.
Undoubtedly many knocked desperately on that door after God had closed it, but
too late: they perished. So will it be with the multitudes who will stand at
the great white throne, eternally condemned, being compelled to pass into the
eternal torment of the lake of fire, because on earth they had refused to
enter the door of life by confessing themselves sinners, and trusting in the
Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. What bitter remorse will be the portion of all
who refused to open their hearts to Christ when He knocked as Savior, and they
find Him refusing to open to them when they knock frantically, but too late,
on the door of heaven!
13:26. “Then shall ye begin to say, We have
eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.”
This was literally true of the generation the Lord addressed that day, but
since then there have been countless others who have eaten the bread, and
drunk the wine of the Lord’s Supper, who have sat in churches listening to
sermons about Christ, who have been busy with many religious activities, but
without ever having known Him as Savior. What unimaginable horror will be
theirs on that day when they discover, too late for remedy, that in spite of
all their religion, the door of heaven is closed against them for ever!
13:27. “But he shall say, I tell you, I know you
not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.”
Workers of iniquity! These religious church goers workers of iniquity? Yes,
a man may be religious, but it is faith in Christ as Savior, not religion that
saves the soul from hell and fits it for heaven. Every man who reads these
words of Christ ought to examine himself in the light of God’s Word, and be
certain beyond doubt that he has had a second birth, for without it, he too
will hear this dread pronouncement from the lips of Christ.
13:28. “There shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets,
in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.”
The application is first to apostate Israel, but no less so to every
unconverted religionist. Few things are more abhorrent to God than the smug
self-righteousness of the religious, but unbelieving man. He who has never
wept in contrition for his sins, will weep eternally for a salvation lost by
refusal to confess himself a sinner and trust in the blood of Christ for the
remission of his sins.
Apostate Israel, for all her boasted kinship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
will discover too late for remedy, that the only thing that can save a man
from hell and fit him for heaven is kinship with Jesus Christ, the very One
they despised, rejected, and crucified. Who can begin to imagine the horror
of those arraigned at the great white throne when they discover that the
despised and hated Jesus Whom they consigned to Calvary’s cross, is the Judge
about to consign them to the eternal torment of the lake of fire!
13:29. “And they shall come from the east, and
from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in
the kingdom of God.”
The reference is not only to the Gentiles but to individual Jews scattered
across the earth, who will believe the Gospel, and trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ as Savior, the Jews who exercise that faith in the Tribulation,
becoming the new nation of Israel that will enter the Millennium to enjoy its
blessings before passing into the enjoyment of eternal blessings with us. The
believing Gentiles out of all nations will constitute the redeemed nations
that will also enjoy millennial blessings, but in willing subjection to Israel
then become as described in Dt 28:13, “And the Lord shall make thee the head,
and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be
beneath.”
13:30. “And, behold, there are last which shall
be first, and there are first which shall be last.”
The reference here is not to time, but to rank. There are many who have been
lightly esteemed on earth, who will hold high positions in the governmental
hierarchy of Christ’s administration. Those occupying prominent positions in
the Church are not necessarily the Lord’s most faithful stewards!
13:31. “The same day there came certain of the
Pharisees, saying unto him, Get thee out, and depart hence; for Herod will
kill thee.”
The implication is that He was in Herod’s territory, but there is no readily
apparent reason why the Pharisees, of all people, should have warned Him to
save Himself. There are two possibilities: they may have been believers,
though it seems unlikely, or they may have been trying to intimidate Him into
going to Jerusalem, where they may have felt that there was a better chance of
His being killed by the Jewish leaders than by Herod. The hatred borne Him by
the Jewish leaders was fanatical.
13:32. “And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell
that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and
the third day I shall be perfected.”
The Lord’s response was enigmatic to those addressed, but today, in the light
of fulfilled events, we see it as the statement that nothing could hinder His
miracle working power until His work was done, and He had performed the
ultimate miracle - paying the redemption price of men’s souls with His own
precious blood. “I shall be perfected” is generally taken to refer to the
perfect completion of the work the Father had given Him to do. The reference
to the third day is obviously to be taken figuratively, not literally, though
there may be in it an oblique reference to His resurrection.
13:33. “Nevertheless I must walk today, and
tomorrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of
Jerusalem.”
Again, the reference to the three days has the same meaning as in the
preceding verse, while the words “it cannot be that a prophet perish out of
Jerusalem” are generally accepted as meaning that it would be unthinkable for
the greatest of all the prophets to be killed any place except in Jerusalem,
the place which had become the center for the evil religious travesty that had
replaced the Divine order, and that was, in spite of its outward pious
pretense, bitterly antagonistic to all that is of God. In other words, it
didn’t matter where a prophet might have been put to death, the ultimate blame
lay with the apostate leadership of which Jerusalem had become the center, and
God was going to have that truth declared to all the world. It would be in
Jerusalem that His own Son would be killed, Jewish leadership thus filling its
cup of iniquity to overflowing, and justifying the fearful judgment that
followed in AD 70. In the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary on
this verse Jerusalem is described very aptly as “the prophets’
slaughter-house.”
13:34. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest
the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have
gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her
wings, and ye would not!”
All their bitter hatred, however, couldn’t quench His deep abiding love for
them, expressed not only in the lament recorded here, but in His cry from the
cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” Lk 23:34.
13:35. “Behold, your house is left unto you
desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come
when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
That great house of which the temple was the center, with all its busy
religious activity was to be brought to desolation, as it is written, “Except
the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the Lord
keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,” Ps 127:1.
That generation that was about to condemn the Lord to death, was itself about
to die, for in another thirty-eight years temple and city, priesthood and
ritual, would all be swept away, the city and temple left a charred ruin, and
the land a desolation, with its people scattered amongst the Gentiles where
they remain to this day. Those who have been gathering back to the land since
1948, with great expectations of restored national glory, are unaware that
they are being gathered back there by God to suffer the terrible judgments of
the fast approaching Tribulation era, and they are equally unaware that out of
those judgments will emerge a believing remnant which will become the Israel
destined for blessing. It will be that believing remnant from among the
apostate mass, that will look for the Lord’s return, crying in joyful
anticipation, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
It is with the same glad expectation that the Church awaits His return to
rapture her to heaven.
[Luke 14]