Not meaning to "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel," as Jesus put it, but again I find myself amused at the misuse of biblical concepts because of general ignorance about the subject.Birds have been dropping from the skies in Arkansas and Louisiana, and now we learn that in far away Sweden a hundred jackdaw birds were found in the road, dead. It is being referred to by some news sources as a bird apocalypse.
Actually, the Greek word apocalypse means an unveiling or revealing of something previously hidden. That is why the last book of the Bible is called the Revelation. Therein is John's story of an angel that came to him to reveal, to show him things that "must shortly come to pass." Among these things were the second coming of Jesus, the passing away of this world, the ushering in of a new Heaven and New Earth, the resurrection and judgment of the dead, in short, the ushering in of the Kingdom of God, which was the subject of the gospel that Jesus preached.
This bird thing might have been the end of the world for these birds, but hardly the subject of the biblical book of Revelation. This is no part of the scenario laid out in the biblical apocalypse.
A couple of my apocalyptic minded friends what asked me what this bird thing means. "Surely it must mean something." I'm sure when the facts are all in we will find a very earthly rather than heavenly meaning for it all. There's no need to worry about an imminent ending of the world.
It's interesting, but astounding to most Christians I talk to about it, that Jesus, his disciples, the author of the book of Revelation all expected the end of the world to come two millennia ago. None gave a hint they thought these events would be in the far off future. When Jesus gave his great discourse about the end of the age and accompanying events, he said, "this generation shall not pass away til all these things be fulfilled" (Matt. 24:34).
So let us live and make the most of the day we have. No one knows when or how the world will end. And these weird "Fortean" things happen. But if you look into nature, you will eventually find the explanation.
4 comments:
This bird thingy fascinates me. End of world? Those men on street corners with their "end of world" signs --- where do they GO when the days keep on coming? Will 2013 rock their world? How WILL they spin it? hahahaha
Diane - It fascinates me, too. I don't see any cosmic significance, however. I'll go out on a limb here and predict the world will still be here in 2013 and end of the world predicitions will continue to be made. The usual spin on these things is that the calendars are off or the calculation were amiss. Yawn.
"Surely it must mean something."
Chaos, the unknown, and the unexplainable is too much for some people, myself included. If we can't find meaning or a way to explain a seemingly chaotic event we create one of our own.
It MUST mean something.
But why? Why does the universe have to be completely organized without an ounce of chaos? What would we do if we didn't have the unknown to discover, to unwrap? I don't think I could sanely live in a world without surprise or a bit of disorder.
Eruesso - I don't know. Maybe sometimes it is like the well-known quote concerning Freud's cigar: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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