Countdown to doomsday

Had to write this post today, because, if the Mayans are to be believed, I will not have the chance tomorrow, because the world will have ended.

The latest flurry of activity from global doomsayers centres on a particular reading of ancient Mayan calendar systems, which finishes its 5,125 year cycle on Friday December 21st, although modern descendants of the Mayans on the Yukatan Peninsula in Central America are simply saying that when this cycle ends, another one will begin - so what's the fuss about.

It's great that, for a change, it's not a nutty Christian group that is claiming to know more than the Lord Jesus or the Angels in heaven about the end of the world (see Matthew 24 v 36). This time it's the calendar watchers, who have always reacted to the occurrence of significant numbers - be it the end of the millennium, or 6/6/06. But there are many other groups who tap into this same sense of a coming doomsday in different ways.

Since Thomas Malthus published his essay in 1798, there have been repeated and urgent cries that we are heading for a Malthusian catastrophe as population growth outstrips our ability to produce resources to feed them. The Limits of Growth, published in 1972, repeated the doomsday warnings. Global pandemics. Global wars over scarce resources. Global warming. Nuclear obliteration. Asteroid impact; supervolcano; global tsunami. Whatever the science or pseudoscience behind these warnings and predictions, they are all versions of the same thing, and tap into the same rich vein of our subconscious worry: that we are heading for an apocalypse.

But the question remains - what is this lurking feeling in the back of our collective consciousness that the world will end? Where does it come from? Part of the answer at least is to be found in Paul's bold statement in Romans 1. Even without the light of the God's particular revelation, he says, the whole of humanity is suppressing the knowledge of God's greatness and goodness. Deep down we all know at some level that God's righteous judgement is coming to us. A judgement we deserve. A judgement we cannot escape.

It is this sense which resonates with these doomsday predictions, whether they are clothed in good or bad science, or in good or bad theology, the announcement of an imminent end chimes in some way with what we just "know" deep down. It's one of the "sneaking suspicions" that are such fertile ground for gospel conversations.

But in the same passage, Paul also tells us that people prefer to believe lies rather than the truth, so it should be no surprise to us that people are caught up in these conspiracy theories and wild claims, rather than believe the truth that the Bible tells us, and which is whispered to us by our strangled conscience.

As Advent ends, and Christmas begins, we need to continue to hold the tension in the gospel promise. Our loving God is graciously giving precious time so that people may repent and find salvation in Christ. But the Lord Jesus will come "soon and very soon." It gives urgency to our proclamation, but confidence that we serve a Lord who will do everything well in His own time.

And although we discount the wild claims of Mayan calendar watchers, we know that somwhere, at some moment in the future, someone will comfort a friend by saying: "Don't worry, it's not the end of the world". But immediately be proved wrong.