Recently I had a conversation with a college-age young man who is struggling with uncertainty about his future and fearsabout what may lie ahead in his life. His own anxieties have been compounded by articles and books he has read about the predictions for worldwide disaster coming in the year 2012.
In case you haven’t tuned in to this apocalyptic news, there is a glut of material to be found on the internet and in books and magazines. Sony Pictures is about to release a blockbuster movie this November which depicts the terrible disasters about to befall our planet, and its advertisements ask the ominous questions: “Who will survive 2012?”
This is all based on archaeological studies of an ancient Mayan calendar, which apparently comes to an end on Dec. 21, 2012. This calendar, devised by an advanced Central American culture that had developed sophisticated systems of writing, mathematics, and astronomy, described great human cycles of 5,000, at the end of which the cycle started all over again. In their reckoning, the current cycle will come to an end in 2012. Strangely, this prediction corresponds to another cosmic milestone. On the winter solstice in 2012, at 11:11 p.m., our sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way, an event that happens only once every for 26,000 years. Some writers of New Age spirituality and metaphysics see this as an omen of climatic disaster, a collision with a comet or asteroid, wars, famines, or even an alien invasion. Others see it as a potential moment of change in the cosmic consciousness.
It reminds me of the ballyhoo preceding the year 2000, when prophets of doom predicted the same array of catastrophes, including the collapse of the internet and the worldwide monetary system. I remember a visitor to the church back then advising me to start stockpiling drums of water, canned food, gold coins, and guns to hold off the rioting masses. In fact, throughout history, seers, visionaries, preachers and hucksters have warned of the imminent end of civilization as we know it, based on their reading of mystics, astrologers, and even the Scriptures. Comets, volcanic eruptions, and eclipses have been seen to presage “the end of time.”
In my own youth, of course, many of us worried that the end was near. I remember participating in air raid drills in which our school class had to practice covering our heads as we crawled under the lunchroom tables. I still have the metal dog tag I was issued in elementary school, which I was to wear so that if “something happened, they would be able to identify me.” It was scary! In fact, I devoted myself to reading all of the Hardy Boys mysteries before the nuclear cataclysm happened.
When that young man recently confided in me that he wasn’t sure--given the world’s imminent end--that there was any point in making plans for his future, my advice was simply this: live. Not fearfully, as if the end were coming any minute, but joyfully and extravagantly, as if every day were a new beginning. For always, in the midst of life, we are at the junction of both end and beginning.
Over the years I have stood at many gravesides and spoken the comforting words of Psalm 121, which ends with this strong promise: “the Lord will watch over your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more.” It affirms for me the truth that each ending in our life is also a beginning, in which God opens to us the possibilities of something new about to happen. New surprises. New discoveries. New relationships. New birth.
As we come to the end of this summer of 2009, I hold on to that promise for us in this place and time. Together we have walked together through the years. Many of our beloved friends have died or moved away. Some of us have watched our children grow into adults, facing the worries and challenges that once were ours, too. Others look ahead and wonder about how we will manage diminishing health, the threat of losing a job, the pain of sorrow, fears for a loved one or friend, or the changes associated with retirement. These most difficult challenges will come unannounced by crystal ball or Mayan calendar.
But this we do know: nothing in all creation shall every separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Roman 8:39). We gather together again this September to proclaim to our most fearful selves and to each other that, even in the face of doom, we shall love and be joyful. We will feed the hungry and heal the sick. We will embrace our children with hope, and offer them God’s tomorrow. We will sing the songs of faith, and make our glad announcement to the world each Sunday: “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
Faithfully yours,
Tim
