Well Said: Jesus of Nazareth II - What Was and What Will Be

More from  Jesus of Nazareth II: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection by Pope Benedict. This continues the theme from the previous excerpt of the "already" and the "not yet."

Speaking about things to come using words from the past strips these discourses of any temporal frame of reference. What we have here is not a newly formulated account of the future, such as one might expect from a clairvoyant, but a realignment of our perspective on the future within the previously given word of God, manifesting both the perennial validity and the open potentialities of that word. It becomes clear that the word of God from the past illumines the essential meaning of the future. Yet it does not offer us a description of tht future: rather it shows us, just for today, the right path for now and for tomorrow.

Jesus' apocalyptic words have nothing to do with clairvoyance. Indeed, they are intended to deter us from mere superficial curiosity about observable phenomena (cf. Lk 17:20) and to lead us toward the essential: toward life built upon the word of God that Jesus gives up; toward an encounter with him, the living Word; toward responsibility before the Judge of the living and the dead.