2012. The Mayan calendar ends with the year 2012. Predictions and prophecies detail a time of great unrest in the world. Wars, disease, famine…
Today, our media has taught us to fear the “end times” and that they are very near at hand. People live in fear of everyday events, seeing them as signs of gathering gloom. There are those who believe that the War on Terror, Global Warming, and our current economic crisis all point to the advent of Armageddon. General consensus points to an Apocalyptic ending such as was described by John in the book of Revelation. But is this really what awaits us?
According to many, the book of Revelation, found at the very end of the canonical Bible, provides a detailed account of a vision given to John while in captivity regarding the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. People describe great monsters, pools of fire, rivers of blood, the swallowing of the moon, and an event known as the Rapture as all being detailed in the book of Revelation. Yet, such a destructive ending does not easily align with what has been revealed to us through Jesus Christ.
Why would the God of Love, the God who sent his own Son to die on our behalf, suddenly decide to destroy His own Creation?
I may not be a great Biblical scholar, nor an accomplished linguist, but I am a critical thinker and I think that the idea of an Apocalypse and the Second Arrival of Christ has been corrupted by the ideas of Man over time.
A growing community of scholars has been analyzing the writings of John, particularly the book of Revelation, and they have come up with another possibility. Much in line with the view of the book of Genesis as a poetic interpretation of what could have been the creation of the world, the book of Revelation does not appear to be taken literally. Given the fact that John had been imprisoned on an island by the Roman Empire for his faith, and the fact that the Christian movement, known as the Way, was still being persecuted, it is more likely that the book of Revelation was meant directly for the people of John’s own time. This does not mean that there aren’t themes that still apply to us today (which I will address later), but we have to remember to take into account the context of this writing.
Around the same time, the Roman emperors, such as Nero, were hunting for the new churches that had begun to spring up everywhere withing the empire, despite their best efforts to remove them. John knew that the Roman army was on its way to Asia Minor, the location of the Seven Churches. He also knew that he needed some way to warn these people without attracting the attention of his Roman guards. This was how he came to the idea of writing his message in a code that would simply appear to be the ravings of a madman. His goal was to remind the churches that God was stronger than any earthly army and that, in the end, God would win, even if the Romans appeared to be the victors right at that moment.
For example, John speaks of the destruction of the great city of Babylon using the future tense. Yet, archaeological evidence and historical reference has proven that Babylon had ceased to exist nearly 500 years before the time of Christ. Being such a devout individual, why would John have made such an errant mistake? The answer, some scholars argue, is that it was an intentional use of the symbol of Babylon. In its time, Babylon was the greatest power in the known world. In John’s time, Rome was the greatest power in the known world. Therefore, the city of Babylon very well could have been a symbol for Rome. True enough, the Roman empire fell, yet Christianity remained.
Apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning a revealing. When Jesus Christ comes again, we know that he will be coming to reveal God’s Kingdom on Earth. There are those that say the world will end, but if we think about what the Kingdom of God is like, would it not be that the world <i>we</i> know would be over? No more violence, no killing, no inequality…sounds like a drastically different world to me.
John wrote to show his fellow Christians that God is the greatest power and there is no power on Earth that can stand up to him. Empires rise and fall, but Christ’s name out lasts them all. This is a message that we can do well to remember. So, what does this mean for us in the future? Is 2012 to be the return of Christ?
I can’t answer that question with any certainty…I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that if we spent as much time as we do worrying about the end of the world on things like feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, helping the lost and forsaken, living the moment…this would be a far better world. We don’t need to wait for some mystical, all powerful moment to bring the Kingdom of God to earth. If we live each day to its fullest, doing the work that God has given us, then we will be the stewards and ushers of God’s great Kingdom.
To me, that’s a far better outlook on the future than we’ve been led to believe…
