The End is Nigh (But Don't Quit Your Job Yet)

I'm not making any plans to be Raptured on Saturday morning. Even if the Rapture was coming, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be going, anyway. But either way, I'm not expecting anything to be different when I wake up on May 21st.

There is a growing group of Christians who believe that the long-awaited end times are upon us. I simply don't buy it.

Human beings have a somewhat dark obsession with the end of the world. It fascinates us and for more than 2,000 years, people have been trying to predict when the Second Coming will occur — and every time, they have been wrong.

Over the centuries, various interpretations of Scripture have pointed to the Rapture and following tribulations as taking place in the year ~30 CE, ~60 CE, 365, 500, 900, 968, 992, 1000, 1033, 1147, 1284, 1496, 1533, 1669, 1689, 1736, 1832, 1843, 1844, 1881, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, 1994, and 2000. Every date has come and gone and we're all still here. The odds of being able to pinpoint the exact date are slim-to-nil, if you even believe that such an event is coming in the first place.

I'm not sure I understand this fixation with the End, but I, for one, believe that Revelation is not the most important book in the Bible. I don't believe God wants us worrying about Judgment Day, but about our everyday choices and interactions.

As a Christian-in-progress, I have to ask myself: Would I live my life any differently if I knew that all of history was about to come to a close this week? Perhaps an even better question is: Would I live any differently if I knew that Judgment Day was five billion years away?

We shouldn't have to be scared into behaving ourselves. Second Coming or not, we should endeavor to live every day as Jesus would have lived it were he among us today. We can't control the future and we shouldn't live in fear of what it might bring. All we have is right now and we should do everything in our power to live Christlike lives in the here and now.

1 Thessalonians cautions us, saying, "you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." So, why should we get worked up about these predictions? God doesn't abide by our timelines. We would do well to be humble and remember that we are called to serve and love one another, not to sit around and waste our lives waiting for a day that probably isn't coming any time soon.

To me, that thought fills me with hope, because I still have a lot of work to do before I'm ready for that day.