Thursday, November 18, 2010

it's the end of the world as we know it.... and i feel fine


If you're a male in Liberia, your life expectancy at birth is 39 years. If you're a woman in Japan, you'll live more than twice that long, about 85 years. But no matter who you are or where you're born, the mortality rates is still 100%. As Scripture says,  "It is appointed once for man to die" and "the wages of sin is death."

We all face an end— personal, national, global, universal. But then what? What comes after the end?

"Eschatology" (Greek for end times) teaches us that humanity's end is not the ultimate end.
The God who created the world and saved the world will bring about its restoration.
What began in the Garden of Eden will become Eden restored.

This hope is found in the OT prophets. Isaiah declares that God will "create a new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65).  Jesus also speaks of the Christian hope of cosmic renewal. He describes redemption "drawing near" for "the whole earth".

Old and New Testament believers have confessed this "blessed hope" down through the centuries.
In the Apostles' Creed we confess " He shall come to judge the living and the dead."
In the Nicene Creed, we state Jesus shall "come again in glory to judge the living and the dead."
And in the Lord's Prayer we pray that God's kingdom would come "on earth as it is in heaven."

CS Lewis has a good analogy of the end - he speaks of it as actors in a play. We don't know everything about the play, whether we're in the first or last act, or which characters play the minor and major roles.
We really have no idea when the end of the play will come. But the plot will find its fulfillment, even if our understanding right now is limited. The Author will fill us in after it is over, but for now, "playing it well is what infinitely matters."

(from journey with jesus)

2 comments:

Andy Wrasman said...

Cool post! Thanks for sharing. What's the image from?

Pete Lange said...

from google images - just typed in "the end of the world"