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.