Are You Ready for the Apocalypse?

By now, we've all had fun with Harold Camping's looney toon proclamation that May 21 is (was?) Judgment Day. One of my favorites: A friend joked on Facebook about leaving a post-rapture pile of clothes at the front door. I also liked PETA's admonishment to make your last supper vegan, which I saw pictured in the NYTimes. My own joke, after one of my German friends made sure to point out Camping's nationality, was: "no one knows the hour or the day, except the Americans." Yes, rest of the world: We're that good! Of course, Jesus explicitly said that no one knows the hour or the date, which leads us to this billboard.

We should joke about it. Yes, there are things here that are deadly serious, particularly those in Camping's group who left jobs, family and everything else that helps them through this world, because they thought the next would start over the weekend. May God be with them in this time and provide for their needs. But, humor, rightly used, is a balm and an alarm clock. It helps us process the absurdities native to this fallen world.

Yet, once the giggling has subsided, Camping leaves us with a very real question: Are we ready for the apocalypse? Yup, there's funny word. Funny enough for DC residents to dub last year's record-breaking snowstorm, "Snow-pocalypse," though I doubt a northern city such as St. Paul would have been intimidated. In spite of the humor, my favorite part of the Anglican liturgy is when we all shout, "Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!" It's a proclamation, growing in controversy with each sentence, that pops out like a firework in the middle of the church service. No one disputes the first, and the second sentence aligns us with all Christians throughout history. But the third - that "Christ will come again" part - does match us with the loonies?

No one knows the date, and anyone who claims they do should be treated with suspicious, correction and, if necessary, laughter. Nonetheless, the hope of Christianity is that Christ really will come again and set things right. Do you long for justice and fairness? Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. Do you want an end to war, conflict and violence? Christ will come again with a peace much deeper than we can ask or imagine. Do you wish someone would undo the violence we've done to creation? Christ, the creator and new creator, will come again. Do long for your body, your heart or your mind to be healed? Christ, the healer, will come again.

In the meantime, those who follow Christ are to engage in His work, united as one body, in preparation. That's why such talk about a second coming should never be an excuse to avoid working for the good - the good of ourselves, each other and this world. The more we grow in love for each other, the more we make peace with each other, the more we strive to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly in our God, the more we long for Christ to return and bring all of these things into completion.

We also realize something else. You see, that last sentence, "Christ will come again" is only good news because of the first two: "Christ has died, Christ is risen." You see, we all fall short. There is something in us that leads us to be unjust and unfair. There's part of all of us that is fallen into division, into a sort of "unpeace" - with each other and with God. We all need to be created anew. In his death and Resurrection, Christ bore our guilt and brings us new life. That means that injustice, disaster, even death does not have the final word. This good news is news of freedom. This news is like the way fresh water tastes after not drinking for three days. The well is deep, and we're invited.

How, then, do we respond? We turn away from any injustice, greed, selfish-ambition or any other sin so natural to us, and believe this good news. Paul writes that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation - the old is gone, the new has come. It is in such hope that we can wait with joy and, yes, expectation that Christ will come again.

That's why, with all the absurdity, arrogance and blindness in a doomsday prophecy, there's something beautiful there as well. CNN managed to interview Tom Evans, the only one of Camping's followers to take questions the morning after (according to the article, Evans served as a spokesman for Camping's radio ministry). The others were, understandably, lying low. Evans said,

"When you as a person believe God is coming back, and you believe the evidence is very clear that he's coming back, that is something every child of God longs for. In a moment, we'd be changed and spend eternity with God. I'm not ashamed of that at all. I'm not ashamed of wanting and hoping for it."

Whatever the problems of pride, theology or pure silliness, the hope that "Christ will come again" is a hope we share.

Are you ready for the Apocalypse? There will be an end. For the majority of us, that end comes in the form of death. Death will be a personal apocalypses, but the wonderful news of the Resurrection is that death does not have the final say. At some point, Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. He will make all things new. I dare not say when, and I dare not describe what it will be like. No one can. But as we go about our lives, cracking jokes to help us with life's absurdities, let's remember that this theme is worth serious reflection.