Truth About The Crucifixion — Page 229
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and I will prepare a place for you, come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. The followers of Jesus expected patiently the fulfillment of his promise which had such a near term in Luke 9:27; But I (Jesus) tell you of a truth, there are some standing here, who shall not taste of death, till they see the Kingdom of God. But not even their sons lived to see it. Both Paul and Peter felt therefore that the words of Jesus had to be explained to believers in a sense so as not to create discontent because the parusy did not take place. This theological turn was easy to perform: the promised mansions were raised from earth to heaven. An agreeable future is easily accepted and trusted. The return of Jesus and the installation of his kingdom of affluence was prophesied even in the 15th century. The Christian believers of the 20th century still ask when will Christ return to earth? On this point a theological discussion about how to explain this, developed in Switzerland in the thirties. The leading theologian Fritz Buri summed up the discussion by suggesting: first to study and explain the historical situation of those times; next to discuss how the contemporaries understood and felt it; and finally to use such a historical basis when counselling in Christ's name the believers in their actual troubles and hopes. A very probable explanation of this question seems to me to be the following one: John's words about Jesus going to look for a place of refuge were very similar to those of the President of my country Eduard Benes in the year 1938, after the fateful sentence of Munich against my fatherland. President Benes, a defeated statesman, had at that time to look around for a shelter and a 221