We Love the End of the World

We love the end of the world. We love telling stories about how it all ends. Just go to the movies during the summer blockbuster season, and you can watch the world end any number of ways: floods from rising sea levels, asteroids from outer space, nuclear annihilation, pandemics, zombie infestations, and alien invasions. We have a sense that things cannot keep on going this way. Something has to give. Will it be with a bang or a whimper?

We know that we are mortal and will not last forever, and we know that this world we love will end as well. For people of Jesus’ time it was the day when God, weary of humanity’s sin and stupidity, would invade the world and impose God’s own rule on the planet. They called it the “Day of the Lord,” the coming of the Son of Man. The dead would rise and be reconstituted and stand before God to be judged according to their deeds. While this may sound like a hellfire-and-brimstone sermon, the fact is that all humanity—religious or not—is conscious of sin and actually longs for judgment. Why else would we keep watching the world destroyed or nearly destroyed again and again? With a mix of fear and eager anticipation, we long for judgment.