May 22nd

I remember when I was a teenager, my Indian brother, Simran, had been staying with us for a while, and he had started to freak me out. Most kids might stay up late listening to ghost stories about the hook, or the zombie babysitters. But I had someone living with me from New Delhi, and he would tell me stories about Nostradamus and the Inca’s creepy prophecies about 2012. The ones that were all about how the world would end (in a variety of ways) but this much was certain, it would end soon.

While it’s true that every culture and religion develops ways to talk about the end of the world, I would imagine that Western Christianity has done a bit more than it’s share to add to the mix of this. Think about the things that are out there right now…There is a group of Atheist’s who offer pet-sitting services, and for a mere $150, they will come rescue your post-rapture pet. This is a serious business, and they are expanding.

For 14.95 a year, you can pre-write a message to all your heathen friends and family, and if 3 out of the 5 Christians that maintain the database don’t log in for a 6 day period. The “You’ve Been Left Behind” database automatically sends out your message to the Pagans you care about. Again, this is for real.

For the past year, I’ve been driving past billboards that tell me the world is going to end on May 21st, 2011. The billboard leads you to a website, and if you go there, you hear some people talking about how Noah knew the world was going to end and you can too. If you just do the appropriate math that the Bible has hidden throughout itself, use the correct logarithm, and have just a touch of crazy, you too will come up with the same date. 

I have a friend who preaches in Little Rock, and the other day he saw a group of these May 21sters with a tent-up in the Wal-Mart. They were passing out pamphlets and trying to evangelize others to be paranoid as well. So my friend walked up, and asked them if they would sign over the titles to their vans beginning May 22nd. He has a family of 10 children, so he figured that they could use the lesson and he could use the wheels.

But they said no.

I heard some stuff about this on NPR recently, most people are taking this pretty lightly. On my own Twitter feed, preachers are talking about not writing their Sermons this week, or people who have made vacation plans for wealthy Christians homes. It’s all pretty amusing, but it’s also sad. Because once more Jesus’ followers make the news because of crazy stuff, at least it’s not hateful this time, but it is definitely crazy.

Now the guy who is making this prediction has already claimed that the world was going to end a couple of times before this. And you got to give him this, he’s nothing if not persistent. So this coming Sunday, as the sun comes up on another day in God’s good world there are probably going to be a lot of confused, glossy looks aimed at him, and he’ll probably dust himself off and say something like, “Oh, I forgot to carry the 1!” And then this whole thing will start all over for some other date.

But there is a bigger problem with all of this.

One of the little talked about moments in Jesus’ teaching, is when he addresses these exact kinds of situations. Times of God’s judgment, and about the age to come…It’s in Matthew 24. And this is what Jesus’ actually says there: ““But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

According to Jesus, the only person who knows stuff like this is the Father, not even Jesus knows. And here’s why I think that is: Because what If Jesus’ doesn’t return on May 21st? That means on May 22nd there will be still be genocide in the Sudan, and homelessness in Abilene. There will still be urban and rural poverty that leaves a large group of children in America without the ability to eat on a regular basis. There will still be divorce and flood damage, injustice and suffering.

And the church will still be called to do something about it.

See I think the reason that God is so intentional about not telling us when and where the age to come is going to happen, is because He knows humanity’s bent. He knows that we will begin to live for then. But the call of God is to live for this place and this time. To make there and then, come here and now.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction. There will be a May 22nd. And if you are an apprentice of Jesus’ you are called to make it better than the day before it. Because I bet tomorrow is actually gonna happen.

But I could be wrong.