Notes from Pastor Peter Milloy
Well, it’s 2012 now, and you know what that means. The end of the world, right? I’m sure you’ve heard that some Mayan calendar from hundreds of years ago puts the end of the world at December 21, 2012. I can’t claim to know anything about a Mayan calendar. But you gotta wonder: dis those folks in Central America know something that we don’t know? Did they have the inside scoop on what’s going down while the rest of us were still in the dark?
Probably not. Although I’ve admitted my ignorance, I will now go out on a limb and deliver this daring prophesy: anyone who’s expecting the end of the world this year will turn out to be wrong. December 2012 will come and go, and we’ll roll on into 2013 without much of a hiccup in the order of the cosmos. Wanna bet a C-note I’m wrong? Well, you won’t collect if you win the bet; you and I won’t be around. Besides, I don’t gamble. (Unless you count that pension money in the stock market.)
And how can I cheerfully make this sweeping prediction with such confidence? Because end-times predicting has been going on a long time now and have always ended in failure – or spin control.
Fact is, we Christians also have a poor track record when it comes to forecasting the end of the world, or even just the end of “the present age.” The Apostle Paul told Christians that “the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away (1 Corinthians 7:29-31).
OK, you know what happened. The present form of this world didn’t pass away. It kept right on going. Pretty soon, Christians went back to mourning and rejoicing, loving their spouses, acquiring possessions, and dealing with the world as best they could – improving it some, I’d say. Every now and then one of us claims to know the end is near, but here we are anyway.
So along with my amazing prophesy, I’ll also give you a blessing: May you experience God as the One who draws you into the future – a future that perhaps He Himself cannot know in great detail, but in which He will continue to be there for you. May 2012 prove to be the most spiritually productive and rewarding year you have ever known.
Peter
