The Apocalypse, My Bicycle and Me

I am not certain where we are now, or what to make of it. Am I illiterate, unable to read the signs, or simply confused? Both are possible.

The times are catastrophic – no doubt! The list comes too easily: ecological threat, technological disruption, war, political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and declining trust and effectiveness of institutions. But do I write these cascading sequences as apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic or something else?

My earliest encounter with an interpreter of the “signs of the times” came on a late August evening.

The Quonset hut must have held 200-300 people, depending upon how the benches were arranged. Outside, on the grass field, cars from Nelson, Trail, Castlegar, Salmo and Creston parked 600 yards from Kootenay Lake.

The platform at the front held the musicians and the preacher.

The preacher terrified me. That evening, he revealed the mysteries of the Book of Revelation, coming to the fiery conclusion that we were indeed living in the end times. At any moment, the night sky would open, and fire would rain like missiles and drones! With passion and skill, he identified the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the name of the Beast and recited current wars, rumours of wars, pestilence run amok and plagues that would make the Black Death look like a cold.

It was all in the Book, foretold to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear.

The only logical, indeed the only possible way out was repentance, with a capital R.

As a boy of eleven, I had hardly accumulated a thick enough rap sheet to merit a Top Ten story of repentance, although my mother might have kept a list. And I had killed Jesus, i.e. Jesus had died for my sin. So there was that.

Perhaps, I reasoned, if I could feel remorseful enough, I would be spared the final fire. I might even escape being drafted to be a missionary to the darkest parts of Africa. The stakes were high: not only escape from eternal agony, but the potential loss of my comics and bicycle, the only things that kept me afloat for many days. Would I even make it home to see my mother, father and brother again? “It’s the End of the World as We Know it.”

I remain forever grateful to Dr. Jim Lindenberger, the Old Testament professor at the Vancouver School of Theology, for clarifying that the prophets—including writers of apocalyptic pieces like the Book of Revelation, Mark 13, the Book of Daniel, and other fragments—were not soothsayers of the future. They spoke, often in code and with vibrant imagery, about the realities of their time. To understand the writing, one had to understand its context.

Their world was not a time of peaceful, easy feelings where all was right with God, but times in turmoil, bad times, really hard times. No Keep Calm and Carry On.

The only thread of hope was that arrogant and self-obsessed evil would not have the final say. No matter what was torn down, what monuments were constructed, or what proclamations were broadcast to herald supremacy, God was the Lord of history. So hang on. Don’t run up the credit card; endure.

After all these years, I find myself returning to this literature.

Photo by Alexandre Juca on Unsplash

I am not the first. In recent years, science fiction and movies have probed the consequences of our reluctance to engage with climate change, the possible outcomes of the Reign of Trump, the invasion of A.I., and experiments in biotechnology run amok.

The literature has history.  Ancient Mesopotamia (2000-1500 BCE) had stories describing angry gods sending floods to destroy a corrupt civilization. And don’t forget Noah. Take down that wallpaper from the nursery! The wipeout was almost total, and perhaps was for those species late to the boarding gate.

The question of the future now has real bite. In the church, we have grown accustomed to saying, often too easily, that no matter the struggles we face, “We are not alone; God is with you.”

How would the dinosaurs have heard this as the asteroid slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula, “with the energy of about 8 billion times a World War II-era nuclear bomb.(1)

The planet survived, but for most it was the end of the world as they knew it, the final curtain for the 165 million-year rule of the dinosaurs.

Sitting in that Quonset Hut by Kootenay Lake, I did not want to acknowledge any truth the preacher shouted because I was afraid I would lose my comic books, Dinky toys, bicycle, and my Mom and Dad—life as I knew it. What makes my recliner uncomfortable now is wondering whether I am still afraid of losing my toys and the comfortable and convenient, even as I acknowledge change has to come.

However, the apocalyptic warnings do not just urge change. They move beyond the prophetic call to Stop It!, repent, and mend the world. They imagine what comes after the action-oriented prophetic, when evil seems to triumph, injustice dominates both the marketplace and the courts, and power reigns without empathy or compassion.

How do we even talk about these times with more than a “tsk, tsk” and shrug? How do we live in the midst of that?

Basically, the apocalyptic message is: hang on. Watch the credits after this movie and see that history is a series, not an episode. God still is in the game. Evil is real but not ultimate. Empires rise but always fall. Practice the disciplines necessary to train a fierce hope. See the world through God’s eyes. All else is fake news. Live as citizens of God’s community.

Easy to preach, but I don’t find it easy. I struggle to live it.

(1) Sean Gulick, research professor and co-director of the Center for Planetary Systems Habitability at the University of Texas at Austin.

A Blessing for Apocalyptic Times

May you not be afraid
when the world you have known
begins to change.

May you have the courage
to see clearly
what is broken,
what is ending,
and what cannot be saved
simply because it is familiar.

When the warnings grow loud
and the future becomes difficult to imagine,
may you resist both despair and denial.

Catastrophe is not the whole story.

When evil appears to triumph,
when power speaks without compassion,
when truth is bent
and hope seems naïve,
practice the disciplines that
yield fierce hope.

May you see through God’s eyes
beyond the episode
to the larger story.

Hang on.

Carry light within the darkness.

Amen.

*Chat GPT assisted with the development of the blessing