Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Luke · About this commentary
Lift Up Your Heads
Luke 21:25-28
25 “There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves; · WEB
The world faints with fear, and the people who ought to be most afraid are told to stand up and look.
"There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves" Luke 21:25.
The heavenly signs are the prophets' standing vocabulary for the day of the Lord Isaiah 13:10 Joel 2:30–31, and the treatment of the coming on the clouds is given in the earlier accounts Mark 13:24–37 Matthew 24:29–35.
What this telling adds is the state of the people watching, and it is described with unusual precision. Anxiety of nations — the word is for a distress with no way out. Perplexity is not knowing which way to turn. The image chosen for it is the sea, which in the older Scriptures is the standing figure for the nations in tumult, roaring and unable to be quiet Isaiah 57:20.
"Men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world" Luke 21:26.
The verb is a strong one — men giving out, breathing their last from dread. And the cause is named twice over: fear of what is happening, and expectation of what is coming. It is the anticipation that does the damage, which is an accurate observation about fear in any age.
"Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" Luke 21:27. Singular, a cloud, and the language is Daniel's Daniel 7:13, where one like a son of man comes with the clouds to receive a kingdom.
"But when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near" Luke 21:28.
This verse is this Gospel's alone and it is the reason the paragraph exists. Everyone else in the description is looking down, fainting, or scanning the horizon in dread. The instruction to the disciples is the physical opposite: raise your head.
The posture is the argument. A bent head is what fear does to a body, and this book has already told the story of a woman who could not straighten up for eighteen years and was released on a Sabbath Luke 13:11–13. The same movement is asked here of people watching the world come apart.
And the reason given is not that the trouble is smaller than it looks. It is that the trouble is the approach of something else. Your redemption is near — the word is the one for a ransom paid to get somebody out, and the timing is the same for both. What terrifies the nations is what the disciples are told to look up at.
settled What this mark means