Jesus was not a soothsayer. That is, Jesus did not predict or outline some future. There is not hidden in the words, teachings, or actions of Jesus some hints or clues concerning the European Union, the United States, or any of the world wars. God didn’t want to be mysterious and force us to be word and symbol detectives. God sent Jesus for quite the opposite…so we might clearly know God better.
Too often Christians see things in scripture and in Jesus that simply are not there. Jesus was addressing those around him when he spoke. He was teaching his disciples and the crowds gathered on mountains, near waters, and on the plain.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not writing what they envisioned as sacred scripture to be read for hundreds upon hundreds of years. As time passed those who were eye-witnesses to Jesus were dying off. No doubt there was a sense that Jesus, as we can see Paul anticipating, was not returning as quickly as anticipated. The teachings, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus needed, then, to be written down for current followers and for however many generations the world had to come until Jesus’ return.
Jesus followed in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. They too were less about predicting some future and more about looking around and calling the present for what it was. Why are those armies coming to Jerusalem? Because you have been unfaithful was the prophets’ insight. It didn’t take a fortune teller or military strategist to look around and see the future as a nation was not too bright with powerful armies heading their way.
This is much like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One the eve of his assassination he said he might not get to the mountain with those in the Civil Rights movement. He was well aware of the many threats against him, the attack on his family, and the very precarious life he was living. Again, one need not be a reader of palms to know it was quite possible if not even quite likely he would be killed. He looked around and called the present for what it was. There were no premonitions about time, place, or circumstances; just reality.
Jesus, instead of being a soothsayer of some type or another was instead one who provided orientation in his teachings. Jesus was, more or less, telling people if they wanted to be those who live and do as God wishes now in their lives, this is how you must live, these are the things that matter to God, and here is the way God intends you to live.
This means in our own day we do not have to read tea leaves, look for signs in the news, the weather, or natural occurrences. We may anticipate and plan for the future in some ways, but we cannot predict it. I have noticed over the years one thing most prognosticators have in common is that when the future they once predicted arrives, it is rarely as they described it would be. I remember the Ford and General Motors exhibits at the New York World’s Fair in the early 1960’s. I am still waiting to see the cars they predicted we would have had long before now.
Instead of looking for scriptural signs to foretell our time, we are much better off reading scripture, listening to Jesus, and working to implement in our own lives the teaching of Jesus in our own present. Doing so will not predict our future, but it may make it more meaningful for us and those who are and will be around us.
I have no idea if Martin Luther actually said he would plant a tree today should he somehow know the world was ending tomorrow. I do know that is a good example of what I have been trying to say in this writing. Whatever the future holds, let it find us as those in our present trying to follow Jesus to the best of our efforts.
