Surviving the end of the world

When I was in middle school, I lived through the end of the world. At least we thought it was the end of the world. 

When computers were designed in the 1960s they ran off a two-digit code for the year, so instead of 1999, the computer would register this year as simply 99. So, when computers worldwide rolled over from 1999 to 2000 on New Year’s Eve, there was fear that the computers would not be able to distinguish 2000 from 1900, and this glitch would cause worldwide shutdowns of all our technological systems - computers would go down, transportation systems would go down, medical equipment would go down, power sources would go down, planes would fall from the sky, and mass panic would erupt that would end the world. 

We look back now and giggle a little, but at the time people were legitimately scared and preparing for the end of the world. Some people even built underground bunkers and stocked them with food and water, equipping them with heavy duty locks to protect them from the post-apocalyptic people outside. Maybe even zombies. Of course, we did end up surviving Y2K. The computers were smarter than we gave them credit for, and the world did not end. 

Every generation lives through an experience that feels like the end times. 

The world seemed to be ending in AD 79 when Mount Vesuvius erupted. 

The world seemed to be ending in the 14th Century when the Black Plague killed millions of people. 

The world seemed to be ending during WWI and WWII.

And we all lived through the most recent end of the world event: The COVID-19 Pandemic. 

For the Israelite people, the sign of the end times occurred when their Temple was destroyed. Not once, but twice. The first time the Temple was destroyed was in 587 BCE when the Babylonians lay siege to Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. The second time the Temple was destroyed was in 70 AD at the hands of the Roman Empire. 

​The destruction of the Temple felt like the end of the world for God’s people because it represented the center of the Jewish faith where the Holy of Holies (God) resided and the High Priests would offer sacrifices on behalf of the people to atone for sins. As long as the temple stood, there was a means for the people of God to maintain their Covenant relationship with God. As long as the Temple stood, there was a place for God to reside in the world. If the temple was destroyed, they believed that there would no longer be a dwelling place for God and God would depart from them. Without the God that protects them, the world would surely end. 

Further, if God allowed His temple to be destroyed, was God even that powerful? If God could not even protect his own dwelling place or save Himself from the cross, what hope can we safely have in God?

This is what is behind our fears of the end of the world. When we experience something that shakes our reality—war, pandemic, natural disaster, invasion, genocide, institutional or government corruption—we wonder, where is God? 

Even Jesus experienced this when he was on the cross, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It is a natural human response to question God’s presence in the midst of suffering or the end of the world. 

But the answer to this question was the point of the Temple's destruction. God isn’t somewhere over there or up there. God isn’t stationary and unmoving. God permeates every space we dwell. God dwells IN us. So when we ask the question, where is God in the midst of my pain? The answer is, “Right here.“

Because we have faith in a God who suffered all that we suffer by putting on flesh and dwelling among us. Not as a powerful king, not as a wealthy merchant, but as a poor immigrant, an honest worker, a betrayed friend, an innocent man who was falsely accused. God loves us so much that he willingly struggled and suffered on this earth so He could be physically with us just for a little while. Our God suffered so we would know that we are not alone in our own suffering. God suffered so that our suffering would be transformed. 

We have faith in a God who foretold the temple’s destruction not as the end of the world but as the beginning of a new life more intimately connected to the divine. 
A life where we no longer have to beat ourselves up and make offerings and sacrifices every time we make a mistake because Jesus gifted us a new Covenant of grace by his death. 

We have faith in a God who no longer dwells in some unreachable space but a God who now dwells in the hearts of all of us. 

We have faith in a God who knows that often our suffering is the birthing pains of our own transformation into someone with more courage, more wisdom, more resilience. 

We have faith in a God who knows that our death is a rebirth into eternal life. 

We have faith in a God who prophesied that the end of the world is simply the last groans of labor that will usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth, where we dwell in God’s shalom, the new creation—the wholeness and perfection that God desired for us from the beginning. 

And we have faith in a God who invites us into the shalom-making. We aren’t meant to wait around for the Kingdom to suddenly appear on earth. We aren’t meant to live in order to experience the Kingdom after we die. We are called to be part of it every day of our lives. Every time we care for the oppressed, every time we welcome the stranger, every time we comfort a friend, every time we recycle or garden to care for creation, we are joining with God in this Divine work. This is shalom work. This is what we are called to do in the midst of a world that feels chaotic. We are called to be part of the Divine transformation. 

Because in God, there are no endings, only transformations. And when we are in the midst of the labor of transition, and we feel like it is all over and we are surely going to die, God promises us new life in shalom.