May 21st

Ground control to major Tom

Ground control to major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

(Ten) Ground control (Nine) to major Tom (Eight)

(Seven, six) Commencing countdown (Five), engines on (Four)

(Three, two) Check ignition (One) and may gods (Blastoff) love be with you

Last week I was driving in the Sacramento area and saw signs warning people that May 21st is judgment day “the bible guarantees it”  I took some pictures to post on Facebook but they didn’t come out.  I’m glad they didn’t.
Where to start, what to say... I come to this from a unique perspective of one who was and still is close to many people who believe in “The Rapture”  I never did ascribe to rapture theology yet I read with horrified fascination several of the Left Behind books.  About180 years ago a young girl had a vision of Jesus returning twice, a preacher grabbed that idea and ran with it.  The word rapture doesn't appear in the bible. I could write a thesis on the topic but I won’t.

It is so easy to mock the people who believe that the rapture will occur on May 21st at 6pm.  It isn’t right but it is easy.  In 1988 there was a booklet printed called 88 reasons the world will end in 88. I remember reading in the SF Chronicle an article about a church not far from where I live that taught  Jesus was returning that year in September and people really believed it.  Many quit their jobs, maxed out their credit cards and (skip to the next paragraph my animal loving friends).... euthanized their pets.  No animals in heaven.

I can’t help but think about the children who weren’t quite sure if they were saved.  Can you imagine what they must have been feeling?  Were they really saved?  Were they going to be raptured, were their parents going to be raptured?  Anyone who has every gone to a pentecostal or baptist church remembers altar calls.  Every week the same people would come forward to be “saved”.  Back in the mid 1990’s popular evangelist said “people go to hell with ordination papers on their walls”  If that isn’t enough to make a scared kid question their salvation then I don’t know what is. So what about the kids.  Jesus is coming to get us, they are told by the parents who are supposed to be caring for them.  Jesus didn’t come and now there is no house, no money to pay the bills, and the beloved family yellow lab is dead.  What the F@#k?  What about today?  What about those children?  What about the adults who have quit their jobs and given all of their savings to these charlatans...These preachers speak for God, we can’t question them or can we?  Each one of us can read the bible and think for ourselves.

I can’t find anywhere in the bible, Jesus saying that it is all about us versus them.  I can’t find where he advocates violence.  Yeah we can cherry pick and  quote Matthew 10:34 out of context.  Using one or two verses in the midst of forgiveness, love, and acceptance doesn’t make sense. 

So I need to find Christ in the people who teach this stuff.  I don’t need to make them agree with me.  I know that Christ loves me and loves everyone (no exceptions).  I know that judgement day isn’t May 21.

When we pray the prayer that Jesus taught we pray for God’s realm to come on earth as in heaven we aren’t praying to escape the world or that Jesus will come back in combat gear and kill everyone we disagree with and destroy the world, we are praying that God’s reign will come to the earth.  So what do we do?  We love, we serve and we forgive.  We pray for people even if we don’t agree with them.

This is major Tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door

And I'm floating in a most peculiar way

And the stars look very different today

Here am I floatin' 'round my tin can far above the world

Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do