On Ending the World

We haven't heard much about Harold Camping over here, haven't seen any billboards for ourselves. We've deduced what we know from Facebook status updates (such a source of news!) and a few articles on BBC.

A funny thing, this predicting the end of the world. The followers believe and hope he's right, trying to ignore that nagging suspicion. The scoffers mock and hope he's wrong, trying to ignore that tiny question: "But what if..?" The day after, the believers feel bewildered, confused, perhaps foolish, and the rest shake their heads with laughter and feel that much more invincible.

But it doesn't seem like too many people were actually asking, "But what if?" Christians are quick, and rightly so, to point out that Jesus taught absolutely no one--including angels and Jesus himself!--knows when he will return. But I wonder if giving that correction is actually a way to just avoid worry or reflection and keep on living as we always have.

In our reaction to a man like Camping, I get the sense we don't expect Jesus to return any time soon and maybe we don't even want him to return, at least not yet. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is this: in blowing off Camping, we need to make sure we are not blowing off the second coming of Christ.

Jesus taught a lot more than "No one knows when." In the same teaching, he urges his followers to keep watch, be alert, stay awake, and prepare oneself with expectation. Our easy mockery doesn't make us sound like a people who are ready and waiting.

Those trite Hallmark quotes aren't too far off from what Jesus said: "Live every day like it's your last." And yet few of us succeed in doing so. Living with an expectancy in Christ's return causes some re-prioritizing, a difference in living. It's easier to hedge our bets.

I'm tempted to say God didn't come back on the 21st just to prove Camping wrong. But part of me wishes he would have come back just to prove the rest of us wrong. Maybe he'll come back today to prove all of us wrong. The truth is, if no one knows, then Camping can't know for sure he's coming on the 21st. But the rest of us can't know for sure he's NOT coming on the 21st.

Am I coming to Camping's defense? Not at all, really. If he studies the Bible as much as he says he does, he should know better. But perhaps we could all in some way learn from his sense of expectancy and anticipation.

And perhaps most of all, it's all a sign that our eschatology is weak and uninspiring. With there being so much we can't know, I wonder if we've resigned to not knowing or believing anything at all.

(On a different note, it would have been a lot of fun to see Sufjan Stevens in Netherlands last night, listening to "Seven Swans" and other apocalyptic songs on the night the world's supposed to end.)