2012 Doomsayers
It is interesting to cruise the electronic noosphere (aka the World Wide Web) and see what people are thinking about the Mayan Calendar ending in 2012. There is a large contingent of doomsayers, some of whom claim expert knowledge of cataclysmic events expected to occur. They speak of immense solar flares neutralizing earth’s protective shield, the magnetic poles reversing, huge meteors plummeting and even large segments of the crust slip-sliding around while the oceans inundate every continent.
Needless to say, not many people would survive such devastating scenarios. One author’s recommendation? Get a boat and lots of survival gear. He admits life on earth would be hell for a long time after, but the upside is that the few who made would get to start a new society - and maybe they would make a better job of it than what we have seen in the past.
Scriptural references to the last days are every bit as brutal, though not couched in modern scientific jargon. St. Peter says “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10) and the Book of Revelation seems to gloat over the vast numbers of dead bodies to be strewn around the planet. These casualties will be brought about by a succession of plagues, natural catastrophes and human conflict.
Biblical prophecy may sound far-fetched, but it should not be discounted. Once Jesus’ disciples were expressing admiration for the immense Jewish Temple of their time and he replied, “As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down” (Luke 21:6).
This must have been hard for the disciples to imagine, since that structure had taken forty-six years to build and was huge. But only seventy years later Emperor Titus fulfilled the prophecy exactly. The temple was burned to the ground and today not one stone of it is standing upon another.
A blue-ribbon panel assembled by Congress has just concluded that terrorists are likely to use a biological weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by 2013, and that the effects of this would be way beyond 9/11. This possibility fits both the Mayan calendar time-frame and Scriptural indications.
What’s more, the official word is that the U.S. is presently in recession, and the world at large in deep financial straits. The pleading of auto executives now willing to work for one dollar instead of twenty million sounds like the shock portrayed over fallen Babylon – a “city” which could well symbolize today’s global materialistic culture: “And they cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, what city is like unto this great city? And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, in which all were made rich . . .” (Rev. 18: 19).
Nevertheless, to focus attention on descriptions of death, deprivation and destruction is to miss the salient point of end times considerations: namely that if such calamities do occur it is to bring closure to things that are not going to continue in the new age of the new world. And that any people who die are most likely the ones who aren’t willing or prepared to live in the new age of the new world.
One of the biggest messages of the Bible is to be alert and prepared, after all. “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come” (Matthew 24:42). And the appropriate survival gear for the experience of this “return” is not to be found in boats or bullets, but rather within a humbled and broken heart.
So whenever the doomsayers begin to sound too convincing, let us remember that, “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And great earthquakes shall be in different places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. But there shall not a hair of your head perish” (Luke 21:10-18).
I think that a lot of what these doomsayers are saying reflects the fears within their own hearts.
ReplyDeleteIt is all their unintegrated stuff which they are projecting on to the world.
And this isn't the first time they've done it either. It happened with Y2K. When they all ran off to the hills, stockpiled with enough ammo and tin food to last 10 years, because the world was, supposedly, about to end (how running to the hills is gonna help come the end is another matter). It's happened with SARS, with bird flu, with anthrax etc. etc. etc.
All of which were supposed to wipe plenty of us out.
Which isn't to say that we shouldn't be vigilant. And, it is conceivable, that it could be as bad as they say. Because very bad things do happen on planet earth. We only need to look at the millions who died during the 2 World Wars, Rwanda, Bosnia, and so on and so forth.
But I would still assert that none of us truly know what is going to happen. Least of all these Doomsayers. And that we shouldn't buy into their stuff.
And the Biblical prophets may have had an inkling - but so clearly did the Mayans and others, who said that, yes, it's gonna be painful, but that this is a cleansing pain: that this is merely the light of God (if you want to put it like that) shining into the darkness of all humanity, individually and collectively. And that this light is so bright that many will be unable to stand it, and may well perish, but that this light is so bright that whomever are able to embrace it and let it in, will wonder the new earth shining as beacons of the divine.
Which is my story of 2012, and I'm gonna stick to it.