The apocalypse is an epic tragedy, but it's also a fantasy of cleansing and regeneration wherein everything inessential and inauthentic is swept away so that we can build afresh among the ruins. It's a convenient untruth. "I've been struck by the number of New Yorkers who have actually said to me, 'God, it was so much fun watching the city fall apart like that,'" says Weisman. "There is on some level a secret longing that people have, saying 'Let's just give it up. What a mess we've made just by being alive.' We all have this footprint now. We've redefined original sin." TIME magazine, Jan. 17, 2008, "Apocalypse New"
There seems to be, in us, an appetite for the sum of all fears, for judgment day. I realize that I have been a bit obsessive about it through my life. Musing about it has taken up a great deal of my mental space (which is vast and empty).
When I was six, I saw Godzilla (at the movies, not in reality) and was flooded with pleasure with the thought of a gargantuan beast tearing up the world. Also, when I went to school, we would practice "duck and cover" down in the basement, with the teacher telling us that the sirens meant the A-bomb was coming.
We were an "apocalyptic" generation, the baby boomers. Perhaps the hippy thing was the attempt to shed the mad dash of civilization toward self-annihilation. Drop out before it's too late. Do something! Turn on! Blow your mind! Make the world anew with a new mind-set. Hail the Aquarian Age!
Thus, when I entered the strange new world of Christianity, I found this same dynamic there: the fascinating apocalyptic clues and images of incredible cataclysm. Godzilla was alive and well in the Bible.
I haven't seen Cloverfield yet, but I probably will. As the producer, Weismann (quoted above) was saying, there is something perhaps cathartic about it all. We feel helpless in the face of a psychotic universe, a world seemingly drunk on evil and injustice. We all die. The end floods our existence on every level. Life is fragile. And yet we endure, and sometimes even do good things.
In a movie, we view the raging monster from a safe distance. The heroes in the movie generally become the masters of their situation or else the final tombstone of mankind is erected: Rest In Peace. In the end, they are all alike. How many times have we seen a Batman or Superman save the world? It is a kind of Messianic hope in all of us.
The word "apocalypse" does not actually mean "the end of the world." Apokalupsis (Gr.) is actually more like an "epiphany" than the usual visualization of incredible holocaust. Jesus himself is the apocalypse: he is the disclosure of something unbelievably grand in scope. It is he that dissolves the hopelessness, the existential despair, the absurdity, and the lonely fear of a universe gone nuts. It is he that brings justice into the wild injustice of life.
Perhaps it has been wrong for so many in the church to concentrate on the "end of the world." For one thing, the scriptures say also that this is "world without end."
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Ephesians 3: 21
We do seem to live in a fragile world today: a world with incredible potential for a massive rupture of all things seemingly secure. Yet we cannot live with that constant sword of Damocles over our heads: the looming blade of annihilation. Jesus said, "The worst that can happen to anyone is they can die", and all of us do that sooner or later. So what if the world ended today?
In a vibrant way, this old world ended almost 2,000 years ago at the cross. The sting of death was removed by the final offering of the Lamb of God. At that moment, all was made aright. All vengeance was satisfied. Ultimate justice was procured. Hardly the end of the world. This is only the beginning.
There seems to be, in us, an appetite for the sum of all fears, for judgment day. I realize that I have been a bit obsessive about it through my life. Musing about it has taken up a great deal of my mental space (which is vast and empty).
When I was six, I saw Godzilla (at the movies, not in reality) and was flooded with pleasure with the thought of a gargantuan beast tearing up the world. Also, when I went to school, we would practice "duck and cover" down in the basement, with the teacher telling us that the sirens meant the A-bomb was coming.
We were an "apocalyptic" generation, the baby boomers. Perhaps the hippy thing was the attempt to shed the mad dash of civilization toward self-annihilation. Drop out before it's too late. Do something! Turn on! Blow your mind! Make the world anew with a new mind-set. Hail the Aquarian Age!
Thus, when I entered the strange new world of Christianity, I found this same dynamic there: the fascinating apocalyptic clues and images of incredible cataclysm. Godzilla was alive and well in the Bible.
I haven't seen Cloverfield yet, but I probably will. As the producer, Weismann (quoted above) was saying, there is something perhaps cathartic about it all. We feel helpless in the face of a psychotic universe, a world seemingly drunk on evil and injustice. We all die. The end floods our existence on every level. Life is fragile. And yet we endure, and sometimes even do good things.
In a movie, we view the raging monster from a safe distance. The heroes in the movie generally become the masters of their situation or else the final tombstone of mankind is erected: Rest In Peace. In the end, they are all alike. How many times have we seen a Batman or Superman save the world? It is a kind of Messianic hope in all of us.
The word "apocalypse" does not actually mean "the end of the world." Apokalupsis (Gr.) is actually more like an "epiphany" than the usual visualization of incredible holocaust. Jesus himself is the apocalypse: he is the disclosure of something unbelievably grand in scope. It is he that dissolves the hopelessness, the existential despair, the absurdity, and the lonely fear of a universe gone nuts. It is he that brings justice into the wild injustice of life.
Perhaps it has been wrong for so many in the church to concentrate on the "end of the world." For one thing, the scriptures say also that this is "world without end."
Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Ephesians 3: 21
We do seem to live in a fragile world today: a world with incredible potential for a massive rupture of all things seemingly secure. Yet we cannot live with that constant sword of Damocles over our heads: the looming blade of annihilation. Jesus said, "The worst that can happen to anyone is they can die", and all of us do that sooner or later. So what if the world ended today?
In a vibrant way, this old world ended almost 2,000 years ago at the cross. The sting of death was removed by the final offering of the Lamb of God. At that moment, all was made aright. All vengeance was satisfied. Ultimate justice was procured. Hardly the end of the world. This is only the beginning.
No comments:
Post a Comment