Stop Worrying and Love The Eschaton

Stop worrying and love the end times.

Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove film from 1964 was part comedy, part philosophical response to the inevitable annihilation that moderns felt was facing them by the cold war and its nuclear weapons.

Many people felt an enormous pressure over the perpetual threat of nuclear war that could have broken out at any moment, resulting in Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The collective anxiety the US and Soviet Union citizens felt, not to mention the rest of the world likely to be dragged into the conflict was morbid.

Kubrick's seeming lesson in the midst of potential world-wide annihilation was to laugh.

Laugh at the brevity of life, laugh at the foolishness of our leaders who would barge into nuclear war without caring about the lack of a future for the human race, and laugh at human nature which changes not even at the brink of annihilation.

I think I have come to see the end times in a similar way as Kubrick and his laughter at the seemingly inevitable "bomb."

Long before any of us reading this were born, Paul wrote "the present schema of the world is passing away," and John the Apostle wrote, "we know it is the last hour." Peter calls the beginning of the church at Pentecost a fulfillment of a "last days" promise of Joel in his Pentecost sermon in Acts 2. Thus, the problems of the world being at an end have faced the people of God for a long hour - yea, since the beginning of the church age.

There may be a little too much of "let's eat and drink for tomorrow we die" in the pathos and ethos of Kubrick's film, but for those of us who have "prepped" to meet with the Lord, for those of us who not only have lived in light of the Lord's commands, but continue to through this apostate season of church history... there is some wisdom in not worrying and loving the bomb - or in our own instance - the end times.

Paul lays down a very helpful principle in the text I referenced above in his warning that the present schema of the world or present form of the world in his own day was passing away.

He says it like this:

But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;

and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess;

and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away.

But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,

and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

1 Cor 7:29-34

Here Paul says not to forsake our earthly responsibilities as the Thessalonians were tempted to do, but to hold them loosely from our hearts. If it is as it was for the Christians in Jerusalem near the Roman siege of the city were to flee to the mountains...

Thus if heaven and earth pass away round about us, if fire falls from heaven upon the whole kosmos, if the second death engulfs the world and heaven and all things so that only those who have overcome survive... let's simply laugh, and eat and drink, for tomorrow we face the next iteration of whatever the eschaton or last days has in store (hopefully we get to Isaiah 2 eventually). That is assuming you already attend God in everything he has spoken (the bible) and have done everything you can.

As John Wesley said when questioned what he would do differently if it were his last day on earth:

“I would spend it exactly as I expect to spend it now. I would preach tonight in Gloucester. I would get up early tomorrow and proceed to Tewkesbury, where I would preach in the afternoon. Then I would go to the Martin’s house in the evening, since they are expecting me. I would talk with Mr. Martin and pray with the family. Upon retiring to my room at ten o’clock, I would put myself in the Father’s care, go to sleep, and wake up in glory.”

Thus, all of us who claim Christ should live as though no deed needed changing if Christ returns today or tonight, or whether we simply die in our sleep one evening.

If that indeed is your attitude you can have an exalted, banal and even sarcastic view of the end times like Kubrick in his view of mutually assured destruction for both the wise and the foolish - at least in terms of flesh and blood - meet the same mortal end.

…

Don't fear last things, laugh at them…

(so long as you are already prepared).

-Nate.

(Bit of a fun and off the wall song I composed in the same theme):