There is a man with a radio ministry who has been claiming that Christians will be "raptured", that is taken into the air to meet Jesus this coming Saturday. Those of us left on earth will "suffer" for five months until the world ends in October. Now this isn't a new phenomena. People have been predicting the final judgement of God for centuries. That someone in this age does it is hardly surprising. What is atrocious about it is that followers of his have sold homes, gathered up belongings and gotten ready for this big day.
What is puzzling to me is how all of these people are certain that they are the chosen of God, that they will be the ones who are raptured and the rest of us will be left behind. That is always what is puzzling about these things. The quiet judgement that pours from this prophecy is astounding. To simply denounce it is not really helpful. After Saturday, when nothing of this sort happens, we will be left with a failed prophet who will do everything that he can think of to tell us why the date was wrong, or that somehow God has chosen another time. I don't think that our prophet will tell us that he is simply wrong about the whole thing.
What I would like to suggest is that we all submit to God's judgement here and now. That we look at ourselves and confess our sins and look at each other with compassion and love. That is certainly what Jesus asked us to do, to get us closer to the beings that were created by God to be objects of his perfect love. That is certainly the reason that God became incarnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth to become human like us to know our hopes and dreams and to have a first hand understanding of how humanity is limited and full of sin. That our Lord went to the cross willingly for us so that by his resurrection we can come to some kind of understanding of the ultimate Grace of God is the most astounding thing that has ever happened. How we understand this becomes the basis for how we live our lives and how we relate to each other. May God bless our prophet in the days following Saturday. May he know that he is certainly on of the redeemed by God who I suspect he believes has contempt for most of us.
