The world was supposed to end the other day, according to one Harold Camping. It did not. And the attitude toward his failed prediction was largely cynical, which in the age of blogging and instant opinions, is not surprising. The sorry part of all of it is that along with Camping's false prophecy, we wanted to throw out the idea of finality and judgment altogether. "If a 'Christian prophet' is wrong about the end of the world, it must not be coming after all!" We snickered to ourselves and continued on with our lives, with renewed confidence in our invincibility.
One day later, a tornado ripped its way through Joplin, Missouri. Along with leveling most of the town, the tornado killed at least 124 people (the death toll is still rising). Now isn't that a little unfair? Those who may have just relaxed because May 21 wasn't the end of the world, were blindsided by a whirling mass of death just a day later. And the rest of us, still chuckling about silly old brother Harold, were forced to stop for a moment and consider that death still comes to us all. There is still a time of finality to our lives. As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes:
It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. (Ecc. 7:2)
We fool ourselves to think that just because we avoid the end in one way, that we will avoid it altogether. And it nearly always comes unexpectedly to us.
(photo credit: Reuters)
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Ps. 90:12)
