You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. Following his ‘prediction’ on the fate that will befall the temple (yesterday’s Gospel reading), Jesus turns to his disciples and tells them not to sit comfortable since they will not be left unscathed. They will be targeted for persecution by the events of the ‘end-times.’ What will make the disciples be targeted for persecution? Will it be that they will be breaking the law or doing something that will put the community at risk? Will they turn into revolutionaries/zealots?  Not necessarily. As Jesus told them, they would be persecuted because of Jesus’ name. As a matter of fact, Jesus’ ‘prediction’ came to be fulfilled not long after Jesus’ own fateful end. Beginning with the martyrdom of Stephen up to the year 325 AD (when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the religion of the Empire and consequently bringing to an end the persecution of Christians), Christian men and women were dragged before kings and emperors, thrown into jails and prisons, and ultimately lost their lives. To them, they were living in the ‘end times’ and everything that Jesus had foretold was being fulfilled before their very eyes.
Knowing the intensity of the vents and how scary they would be, Jesus moves to assure the disciples of his support: ‘ I will be with you all the time. When they drag you before governors and kings, I will speak for you. I will give you the right words to speak. It will be scary but I will be with you through it all.’ We see this in the courage with which men like Stephen defended the faith. Death threats and persecutions did not come between them and their profession of the faith. This is because the words they were using to defend the faith was not theirs but rather those of Jesus.