Luke 17:31-37
In that day, he who will be on the housetop, and his goods in the house, let him not go down to take them away. Let him who is in the field likewise not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever seeks to save his life loses it, but whoever loses his life preserves it. I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. The one will be taken, and the other will be left. There will be two grinding grain together. One will be taken, and the other will be left.”
They, answering, asked him, “Where, Lord?”
He said to them, “Where the body is, there will the vultures also be gathered together.”
This is an interesting passage. First Jesus warns his Jewish listeners here that when the time finally comes for Jesus to rule the earth, it will be a terrible thing. He compares it to the destruction of Sodom. When that happened, God completely destroyed the entire city with fire. The only way to not get consumed was to leave the city and it appears that this is why the coming of Jesus to rule the earth will be so obvious. If you don’t get out of Jerusalem, you are going to get burned! There will be no time to pause and think about it.
I admit that I am not exactly sure what Jesus meant by the “One taken and the other left” part of this, but I believe, in context, He’s talking about people in Jerusalem who will be getting killed. It will happen so quickly that the ones who are ready will get out even though they were recently standing right next to someone else who won’t budge. I read that God is going to make sure that only those who are unfaithful get punished at this time. When the disciples ask “Where, Lord?” it appears that they are asking about where the ones who are taken will go, but it appears to be that Jesus answers their question from His own context.
Rather than telling them where they were taken, He tells them where it’s going to happen. He tells them it happens “where the body is.” Now that’s a difficult mystery for me, but I believe that, in context, Jesus is changing the subject back to what He wants to talk about and that is the fact the both the righteous ones and the unrighteous ones will be mixed together when this happens. I believe that Jesus is referring to His own body. Not everyone who claims to be a saint of Christ is going to actually be a saint. There will be vultures who just want to “eat off of” the body for their own self promotion and that God will separate them at the end. This is consistent with other parables that Jesus talked about on this subject.
I believe that this parable is talking about the Great Tribulation rather than the time that we live in. It appears that He is also talking about Jews who live in Jerusalem. The lessons still apply to us in many ways because we should also be eager to leave our belongings at any time to be with Jesus.