Perspective: The End of the World

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

The End of the World

Scripture:

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:10 (KJV)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne say, "Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be His peoples. God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. There will be no mourning, crying, or pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Then the one seated on the throne said, "Look! I’m making all things new."

Revelation 21:1-5a (CEB)

He made the lame walk and the dumb talk
And He opened blinded eyes to see
That the sun rises on His time
Yet He knows our deepest, desperate need

And the world waits while His heart aches
To realize the dream
I wonder what life would be like
If we let Jesus live through you and me

From "What Life Would Be Like" by Big Daddy Weave

If you have been paying attention to the news in the last few weeks, you know that one man predicted that the end of the world would begin on May 21 of this year. This man bought ad space on billboards throughout the United States to warn the people of the judgment to come.¹ Armed with pamphlets and signs, his followers went out to call people to repentance. Many people, myself included, made jokes or laughed because of the prediction, but some people actually quit their jobs and stopped saving money, betting everything on the hope that on May 21 they would be taken to Heaven.²

May 21 came and went, and life went on as normal.

Popular theories about the end of the world are taken from the Revelation of St. John pieced together with visions from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, teachings of Jesus about the Day of the Lord, and some writings of St. Paul. One popular theory holds that someday all true followers of Christ will be suddenly taken to Heaven in an event often called the Rapture. Next will come a seven-year period of hell on earth called the Great Tribulation, during which the world will be controlled by an evil ruler called the Antichrist or the Beast. The Great Tribulation will end with the Battle of Armageddon. Finally, Christ will return to earth to reign, and all people will be judged. Not too long ago, there was a popular fiction series based on this theory.

At one point in my life, I subscribed to such a theory - I even followed the aforementioned book series for a while. Over time, though, my personal beliefs about scripture changed, and I stopped holding to such a literal interpretation of apocalyptic Scripture. Now I tend to view such Scripture, particularly the Revelation, as a metaphor for the struggles one faces for following Christ and standing up for what is right. To me, the Beast in Revelation represents the systems and regimes that exploit, oppress, and harm people. To the first readers of the Revelation, the Beast was the Roman Empire, but, to others, the Beast has been Naziism, apartheid, imperialism, caste systems, and slavery to name a few. Truly following the teachings of Jesus Christ puts a person into opposition against such systematic evils.³

Despite my more liberal view of Scripture, I still claim the hope that someday Christ will return to the earth to make things right. Either by coincidence or by divine providence, on May 22, one day after the end times were predicted to begin, I had the opportunity to teach a Sunday School lesson about St. John's vision of the restored world found in Revelation 21.

In this vision, John sees a new heaven and a new earth. This is not to say that heaven and earth will be destroyed so that new ones can be created in their place. What John sees is that heaven and earth have finally been redeemed, restored to the goodness that the Creator intended from the very beginning, before creation was broken by sin. This is a vision of God "making all things new." John then sees the city of New Jerusalem being lowered to the earth from Heaven. God Himself will dwell with humanity to reign. Under the reign of God, there will be no more sadness, no more pain, no more death, and no more evil.

John's vision of the new creation is followed with a warning:
But for the cowardly, the faithless, the vile, the murderers, those who commit sexual immorality, those who use drugs and cast spells, the idolaters and all liars - their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.⁴
I don't like teaching or preaching about hell, and I hate when people use the threat of hell to convince someone to become a Christian. Nevertheless, such parts of Scripture must not be ignored.

As St. Paul writes, "the wages that sin pays are death"; the natural result of sin is destruction.⁵ Sin breeds things like pain, sadness, fear, and death - things that will be absent in the new creation. Sin cannot exist under the reign of a holy God.⁶ Some ways of life just won't work out in the new creation, neither will they be allowed. This warning is a call to repentance. If we are unwilling to turn from evil, destructive ways, we resign ourselves to the misery and death that we earn with our actions, and we miss out on the newness of life that God offers us.⁷

So should we try to predict when this time will come so that we can make sure that everyone is ready?

Christ, in His teachings about the Day of the Lord, says that even He doesn't know when it will happen - only God the Father knows.⁸ St. Paul, in one of his letters, writes that "the Day of the Lord is going to come like a thief in the night," meaning that it will be unexpected.⁹ If you think that you have happened upon some secret formula that will reveal the exact date, remember that St. Peter writes that "with the Lord a single day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a single day."¹⁰ This is not another formula but a reminder that God does not operate on a system of time like we do. Ultimately, trying to predict when Christ will return is pointless.

More than anything else, what I learned from the discussion at Sunday school that day is that maybe predicting the date of Christ's return and drawing up timelines of end times events are not the best ways to prepare for Christ's return. Perhaps we should instead invest our energies into preparing for the reign of God. The best way to prepare for God to reign on the earth in the future is to let God reign in our hearts today.

Every week at my church, the congregation prays, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Perhaps you regularly pray for this as well. It is important to remember that this part of the Lord's Prayer is not just a wish for the future but a prayer for the here and now. The Kingdom of God has not been realized on earth as it has in John's vision of the future, but it is realized among people who truly follow Christ. We are called to live now as citizens of the Kingdom of God, to live out God's will in our lives, and to show God's love to other people.

To prepare for the reign of God on earth, we need for God to reign in our hearts here and now. We need to put away our destructive patterns and to be Christ's hands and feet in the world around us. For these things to happen, we must rely on God's grace. When we put our faith in Christ and turn our broken lives over to God, God gives us His transforming grace through the Holy Spirit. If we want to be a part of the new creation, we need God's grace to make our hearts into new creations today.


Notes:
1 - Jesse McKinley. "At Apocalypse Central, Preparing for What Happens, or Doesn’t." New York Times, May 20, 2011.
2 - Tiffany Stanley. "No Rapture, Just Judgment." The New Republic, May 23, 2011.
3 - Again, this is only my personal view of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible. I am not so arrogant to claim it as absolute truth. Who am I to say that the world will not end as some theorize?
4 - Revelation 21:8 (CEB)
5 - Romans 6:23 (CEB)
6 - Kevin Baker. "All Things New", Adult Bible Studies Spring 2011. Cokesbury. p. 89
7 - Rob Bell. Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. 2011, Harper One. p. 112-113
8 - Matthew 24:36
9 - 1 Thessalonians 5:2 (CEB)
10 - 2 Peter 3:8 (CEB)


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.

Introspection: A Time to Let Go

This is what I was going through when I wrote my perspective
"Turn the Page."
I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

A Time to Let Go

Scripture:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven...
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away...

Ecclesiastes 3:1,4-6 (NRSV)

So I climbed a mountain and built an altar
Looked out as far as I can see
And everyday I'm getting older
I'm running out of dreams

From "Your Love" by Brandon Heath

Have you ever felt lonely in a room full of friends?

Looking back, I have come to realize that each of the last few phases of my life revolved around making up for the previous phase that didn't work out like it should have. My high-school experience was not at all what I think it should have been. I went to a religious school that was much too conservative and strict; I had only a few friends; the girls I liked didn't like me back; and I didn't get out very much. What's worse, I just couldn't seem to come out of my shell. Looking back, I know that I should have made the most of my time there, despite the rules and religious differences. I also know that I could have had more friends and more meaningful relationships were I not such a religious bigot.¹

Then came the time I had anticipated my whole life, my life's ultimate goal, the time that was supposed to make up for high school: college! I started out repeating many of the same patterns I had back in high school, but in my third year I found the community I never had but always wanted - people who were fun to be around, people who believed like I did, people I wanted to be like. This community gave me many opportunities to have fun, to serve others, and to grow spiritually. It was beautiful for a while, but in two years I had to graduate.

My college experience was a lot better than my high-school experience. I made more of my time in college, but I still could have done better. I had waited two years to seek out community, and being a commuter left me somewhat disconnected from the others in the group. There were still experiences I had missed and opportunities I had passed up, and I still hadn't completely broken out of my shell. Now college was over, and the years that were supposed to be the best years of my life were behind me. Was I supposed to give up my community? My friends? Luckily, my Alma Mater was just a few minutes away from my house, so I decided to hang around for a little while longer.

So there I was, more than three years later, a ghost clinging to the world he used to know. I was a young working adult in a community full of collegians, feeling more and more like I didn't belong. Everyone who had been a student when I was a student had already graduated and moved on. I wanted so badly to belong in this group, to have a place in this group, but I felt so disconnected from everyone else. I knew they accepted me; I knew they cared about me; and I knew that the walls that separated us were within my own heart. Still, the differences between my stage of life and theirs was becoming more and more of a barrier for me, and I just couldn't be a part of the community like I wanted. Something had to change.

Thankfully, God led me to another community, a Bible-study group at a large church downtown.² When I walked in, I was immediately welcomed into the group, despite the fact that I don't attend that particular church. The group was very much like my college community, but it was intended for all young adults and not just for college students. I was finally with other people like me, people who were in the same stage of life.

I am enjoying my time with my Bible-study friends, but every now and then I go back to visit my college community. And sometimes, when I do, I still feel the same longing, the same disconnect, and the same sadness. Finally, I realized that I was still stuck in high school. In high school, things didn't go for me the way I think they should have, so college was supposed to make up for that. When college was over, and my dreams hadn't come true, I held on for dear life to the one thing from college I could hold on to.

The truth is that both high school and college are behind me. Those days are gone forever. I can never get them back. I cannot redo those parts of my life that didn't go the way they should have, and I cannot make up for the experiences that I missed. And admitting that hurts like hell. My parents neglected to tell me that growing up would hurt so much.

As a Christian, I claim the good news of the Gospel, but it's a real pity that I don't apply it to my whole life. The Gospel is a message of God's love and grace, a message of forgiveness and redemption. The Gospel does not give us the chance to undo the past or to make up for the past; the Gospel does, however, give us the chance to make a fresh start by putting the past behind us with God's forgiveness, by restoring broken relationships with God's grace, and by moving forward with God's help. When we trust God with our lives, He will not change our regretful pasts, but He will transform our lives in the present. He will give us the grace we need to move forward into the future.

St. Paul wrote, "When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, reason like a child, think like a child. But now that I have become a man, Ive put an end to childish things."³ In my case, the childishness I need to end is my desire to cling to the past and to try to make up for the things I didn't do right. I'm taking the time to finally grieve what should have been, so that I can truly move on with my life. I need to let the past be the past and to let God lead me into the future.

And maybe, someday, I'll come out of my shell.

To all my college friends who may be reading: this is the reason I have not been around much lately. I will be back to visit, though. I love you, and I wish you the best. To those of you who have graduated: I'll see you at homecoming.


Notes:
1 - I always looked down on fundamentalists for being judgmental and closed-minded, but I was judging them and closing myself off to them. As always, my own worst enemy is the man in the mirror. I point my finger, and three point back at me.
2 - Funny story: on the night before I intended to first visit this Bible-study group, I happened upon a map of the church that I received when I attended a Sunday school workshop there. A coincidence or a nudge from God?
3 - 1 Corinthians 13:11 (CEB)


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.