Jesus leaves us today with a discomforting and obscure image: “where the Body is, there also the vultures will gather.”[1] …
I think here of corpses in the desert, dead from dehydration and become carrion for scavengers.
And this is Jesus’ answer to his disciples’ question, “Where, Lord?”[2] … “where the body is, there will be vultures.”
Jesus had just been telling them about something called “the Day of the Son of Man”[3] or sometimes “the apocalypse.”[4] At this time, Jesus says, “Two will be in a bed[5] – one will be taken, the other left.[6] Two will be grinding grain[7] – one will be taken, the other left.”[8] So the disciples’ question might mean, “Where will the saved[9] be taken?” or, “Where will the condemned be left?” And Jesus strikes back with this difficult expression: “where the body is, there the vultures will also gather.”
Jesus often says things difficult for us to understand. Maybe the meaning of this expression is clear to you, but it was not to me. I can certainly relate to Jesus’ foolish and tedious disciples who so often exasperate him with their incomprehension.
So, I studied the question and soon discovered many ways of understanding these words of our Lord.
Many think this is an idiom, rather similar in meaning to our expression, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” -“Where there’s corpses, there’s vultures.” In other words, Jesus may be saying, “You’ll know the day has come when you see it.”… “Keep watch, for you know not the day nor the hour that that Son of Man is coming,” as he says in Matthew.[10] This stands as a caution to us not to follow after those who claim to have cracked the bible code or unlocked the date of doomsday.[11] When the Lord comes back, we’ll know – it will not be any secret knowledge.[12]
But in a most important way, Jesus is already with us. He is God with us – Emmanuel – right here and right now. He is coming, but he is already come. We particularly remember his becoming present among us during the current season of the Nativity fast. Yesterday, we read that the Kingdom of God is already among us and within us.[13]
In the Divine Liturgy – which is outside of time, which takes place at once in heaven and on earth – after the words of institution, we “remember… all that has come to pass in our behalf,” including “the second coming in glory.” The “second coming” has already “come to pass” for us from the eternal kairotic perspective of the Divine Liturgy.
In light of this reality, Ambrose offers a different understanding of this body surrounded by vultures.
First of all, “vultures” may or may not be the best translation. It works for the idiomatic understanding I mentioned before, but the Greek word here is usually translated “eagles.” This expression is the only instance in which it is rendered “vultures,” because many suppose that works better in the context.
In scripture, however, an eagle is a far nobler creature than a vulture. Eagles do not eat the dead. Because they live so long, eagles are associated with youthful and vigorous souls.[14] Isaiah prophesies, “They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”[15] Those like eagles, then, are those who believe and hope in the Lord.
With this understanding then, the Lord’s words could have another meaning. "Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together."[16]
Ambrose is quick to see this body as the body of Christ. The eagles, then, are first of all those of Christ’s disciples that stayed with him to the end – Mary, Mary, Mary, and John.[17] These are the eagles gathered together around the body of the Lord on the day of the Son of Man. … Christ’s death on the cross is the consummation[18] of his loving sacrifice for us and for our salvation. The day of that sacrifice is the day of Lord in which his victory over death is accomplished[19] once and for all.[20]
“Where Lord?” we ask. “On the cross, and nowhere else” he answers. That is the place where the saved are saved and the damned are damned. In his body. On the cross.
Secondly, Ambrose writes, “Jesus says this concerning this body [surrounded by eagles]: ‘For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.’”[21] The body is the one body of the Lord re-presented to you and me. If we approach him with the fear of God and with faith[22] – discerning this body[23] – it is the place of our salvation. Here, he shall forgive our iniquities, heal our diseases, redeem our lives from the Pit, crown us with love and mercy, and renew our youth like the eagles’.[24]
“Where, Lord?” we ask. “Here, in this holy place, from this holy table,” he answers us today.
[1] Luke 17:37 NAB
[2] Luke 17:37
[3] Luke 17:22, 24, 30
[4] cf. Luke 17:30
[5] the wealthy (Cyril of Alexandria)
[6] Luke 17:34
[7] the poor (Cyril of Alexandria)
[8] Luke 17:35
[9] the virtuous and good (Cyril of Alexandria) – the faithful (Ambrose)
[10] Matt 25:13
[11] cf. Luke 17:23
[12] gnosis
[13] Luke 17:21
[14] Ps. 102:5; Is 40:31
[15] Is 40:31
[16] Luke 17:37 RSV
[17] John 19:25-26
[18] consummatum est
[19] τετέλεσται
[20] Rom 6:10
[21] John 6:55
[22] Liturgikon, 91
[23] 1 Cor 11:29
[24] Ps 103:3-5
