In the four or so years that I’ve been here in my adoptive hometown, I’ve noticed something about the people here: they freak out whenever inclement weather threatens. Last night, for example, the forecast called for 3-6 inches of snow from 6 PM to 6 AM, most of it non-accumulating. At around 5 PM, though, the local grocery store was a madhouse. The parking lot for the store was completely full, as was the parking for the strip mall around the corner. The store intercom kept calling more associates to work cash registers. The gas station was crowded. People were acting — and driving — like the apocalypse was imminent.
(Was the end of the world upon us? Decidedly not. As I write this, a mere 8 hours after it stopped snowing, the 2 inches of snow we actually got has all but melted away.)
The end of the world, though — or at least stories about it — figures quite heavily into almost every society in history. The Aztecs, for example, believed that we are living in the fifth age of the world — the four worlds previous to ours having been destroyed by the gods for the evils the inhabitants had committed. This world is no exception, they believed; it will be destroyed just like the other four.
But wait a minute, here! The Aztecs were primitive people. They sacrificed people on top of ziggurats in order to keep the gods from killing them. They didn’t have science to help them understand the world, like we do. We can’t possibly give credence to one of their myths! It makes for good reading, sure, but we shouldn’t take it seriously!
Right. Except that the actions of normal, everyday, modern, educated people show us that the stories of the end of the world are worth taking more seriously than we think. People innately know that someday, everything they know will come crashing down and that they will have to give an account for everything they’ve done. And it scares them to death. So they desperately try to prepare themselves for it.
It’s like waking up in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke in your bedroom. You don’t see flames just yet, but you know they can’t be far away. Now, your whole life, educated people have told you that your house will never burn down, that stories of houses burning down are just fables to be enjoyed but not taken seriously — pieces of cultural history, nothing more. But regardless of what the educated people say, you’d still throw clothes on, grab your valuables, wake your family, and make sure everything’s okay.
The people at the grocery store last night found themselves in a situation like that: they could smell the smoke of apocalypse. They couldn’t see the flames just yet, but they knew, somewhere deep inside themselves, that the end is near, and they wanted desperately to be ready in whatever way possible.
It’s a good lesson for believers. Let us all smell the smoke of apocalypse. Except, instead of stopping on the way home from work every day and buying a month’s worth of canned goods, staple foods, and bottled water, let us love the God who made us and love our neighbors the way we love ourselves.
“Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!” (Rev 16:15)
“Know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Mt 24:43-44)
