Not the Apocalypse! Not the Apocalypse!

Please read the title of this post in your best Baby Dinosaur voice.

Several friends and acquaintances have recently posted various analyses of a statement by Jesus concerning signs of the end times:

• Mark 13:24-25—But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
  
• Matthew 24:29—"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken…”
  
• Luke 21:25-26—And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”*

The analyses go something like this: The eclipse, followed by Harvey’s wrath over Rockport, Texas, and the subsequent flooding of Houston, Galveston, and Beaumont, are proof that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent. We are living in the End Times and can expect the Rapture at any moment, so Christians, be ready, and non-Christians, come to Jesus NOW or be “Left Behind.”

UGH.

Human beings have been able to predict eclipses with more or less certainty since the time between the writing of the Old Testament and that of the New Testament, the inter-Testamental era. Lunar eclipses are easier to predict than solar eclipses, but the porto-scientists of the ancient world knew what causes both forms of eclipses and recognized the cyclical nature of them. The motion of the sun and the moon is measurable and describable from Earth’s surface. My hunch is that the main reason people remained superstitious about eclipses (“remain” is probably better here) for so long has to do with communications rather than lack of ability; before the intention of the printing press, news could only travel as fast as humans, horses, and sailing ships, or perhaps smoke signals and fire signals. Imagine you’re out in your field weeding crops one day when the sky darkens and the air cools for no discernible reason: you’d likely be terrified and seeking an explanation, too! God’s wrath, a fight between the sun and the moon, or a mythic beast of the heavenly ocean swallowing the sun make as much sense in those circumstances as the actual explanation would to those thinking that the sun and the moon revolve around the earth.

We haven’t been able to predict major ocean storms for nearly as long. It took the advent of satellite imagery coupled with meticulous data gathered over centuries for meteorologists to become as skilled as they are—and yes, the old joke about baseball players and weathermen getting paid well to be right 30% of the time is still somewhat true—with forecasting. The accuracy of Hurricane Harvey forecasts compared to those about Hurricane Katrina is nothing short of astonishing even though the actual location of initial landfall for Harvey was not known until about 90 minutes before the event. With Hurricane Irma still five days from the Caribbean, the forecasting models are literally all over the map yet, but we will see those forecasts converging into more and less probable tracks as the storm gets closer to the United States. Assuming we continue to fund the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US weather and climate scientists should maintain pace with their European, Asian, and African colleagues over the next 10-15 years so that the forecasts about storms then will make the Harvey forecasts seem quaintly inexact. The same knowledge curve applies to snow storms (Dear Weather Channel, STOP naming winter storms!) and even to dust storms.

We know what “stars falling from heaven” are now. They are meteors burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. Or in some cases, human-built satellites or space junk deorbiting. They are not portents of impending disaster or signs of God’s displeasure with humanity.  We can’t necessarily predict shooting stars, but at least we understand them.

We now understand the “signs” of the apocalypse Jesus speaks about to be natural occurrences in the universe. Eclipses solar and lunar, fierce storms, and meteors that streak across the sky are features of its existence rather than moments when God sticks a metaphorical finger into the works to gum them up. I don’t believe that any of these things are signs of impending doom or the Apocalypse or any other cataclysmic event.

But I do believe that Christ will come again.**

I firmly believe that at some point in the future, when humankind (or whatever sentient species evolve after us, should we succeed in causing the Sixth Great Extinction to eliminate our own kind) has brought all of creation on Earth to peace, hope, love, and justice, that the Messiah will come to reign over the Realm of God. I think this will happen when we have managed to live out the Lord’s Prayer—“Thy kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

As horrified as I was at the hatred on display and as pleased as I was by the love shown in the counter demonstrations in Charlottesville earlier in August, I am far more delighted by the amazing ways people have helped one another in the destructive path of Harvey. There are times when, to put it bluntly, people suck. Displaying swastikas and carrying Confederate battle flags through a college campus or on Boston Common and dry megachurches in the middle of flooded Houston staying closed to evacuees are examples of such times. Clergy and students marching through cities to counter white supremacists, the “Redneck Navy” towing boats hundreds of miles to be part of search and rescue operations, and commercial businesses opening stores and offices to shelter evacuees are examples of moments when people shine. Even though we hear more about the times people suck in the news and on social media, I see far more evidence in my daily life that most people shine most of the time. 

This is Good News! You see, the Realm of God is built on people shining. Doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, not for attention or glory. Treating others as though they, too, bear God’s image within them no matter where they were born, who they love, what gender they are, what religion they practice, or how much money they have. Standing up against those who seek to tear down the vulnerable, especially those whose life circumstances are the result of other people’s actions. Recognizing the equality of every person and fixing the systems that render that equality meaningless in practice. Repairing the damage we in our hubris have done to creation—these are the ways we build the Realm of God.

We might still cause the Apocalypse, don’t misunderstand me. But if the Apocalypse does happen, it will not be God’s doing. It will be our doing because we have failed to do what God has called us to do all along: shine.

*Translations from the Five Gospel Parallels site at http://sites.utoronto.ca/religion/synopsis/meta-syn.htm. 

**A good friend tells a story from a former Israeli ambassador to the United States about the Messiah. Should the Messiah come during his lifetime, the ambassador plans to ask if it’s his first visit or second visit to Earth. If it’s the second time, he figures the Abrahamic covenant will still apply. If it’s the first time, he’ll ask if it’s okay for his Christian friends who got it wrong to come along.