What Are You Waiting For?

[Jesus wondering why you’re still surfing the interwebs.]

Delighted, in the midst of my search for news both terrible and interesting, that my announcement about the end of the world earlier in the week has been confirmed by the Daily Star over in the UK—I don’t actually feel like linking it because the sidebar is comprised exclusively of shapely women, contributing, for me anyway, to the sense of doom. So you’ll just have to take my word for it. And I’ve never lied to you yet, at least not on purpose, so you should feel comfortable and happy about the information I have to share.

So yes, the Apocalypse is imminent. The signs are everywhere. I know, I know, you’re thinking, ‘Goodness, is it because of the theybies (babies whose parents are so decadent and morally confused they’ve made the culturally adorable choice not to gender them. The theyby, I know autocorrect, I know, will get to choose a gender around age four, but any time really.)? No, it can’t be that. Maybe it’s the incredible worldwide declining birthrate that will cause economic and social devastation of epic proportions? No, that’s no big deal. Maybe it really is the inability of people to read texts and to think beyond the slavishly demanding emotion of the moment? No no.’

Well, you can go on guessing but I’ll tell you. Ready?

There’s going to be another blood moon, only this one is going to be Really Long. As in, it will last for 27 minutes or something. Also, eclipses are going to be adorning the heavens on either side of it. We had one already, apparently, on the 13th, which, I think you should know, was my child’s birthday. The other one will be on my wedding anniversary. This Must Be A Sign.

I feel like Jesus said something about certain generations wanting a sign, but it probably doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure Jesus is happy with whatever we think and believe, even if we have to change it every year.

Verily and truly, I sympathize with the hopeful desperation that maybe at the dawning of this blood moon, Jesus will finally  come back and give me the pony and the chocolates I so deserve. I read the news every day. I try to avert my eyes to what’s going on in Nigeria, and Nicaragua, and in my own town. I look despairingly at my own list of things I’ve got to do and the needs that surround me. The easiest thing is to sit back and wish that Jesus would just put a stop to all of it. Just end it now. Enough already.

But that dream wish only makes sense if you think that Jesus himself is a cosmic money machine, and if you haven’t read the book of Revelation. Because what is the thing that we get at the very end? What is it that we’re really supposed to be excitedly waiting for? A cessation of grief and injustice? Comfort and security for all the ages to come? Rewards for all our good works? Getting to be with people we love once more?

Or is it Jesus himself? Because you can have him now. You don’t have to wait until the very end to commune with, to love, to adore him. He is there, so close, in your heart and in your mind, bringing you in himself before the very throne of heaven, drawing back by his own blood the curtain that separates this purgatorial moment from heaven itself. When you go to church, you sit at the very threshold of God’s throne. You can’t see it. You can’t perceive it. You are distracted by the wiggling of children, by the person wandering around in the narthex, by the dust on the windowsill, by all your own stuff that you hauled there with you. But he is there.

What is it that you want? Is it that you want Christ forever? Or do you want all the stuff? If you want Christ you don’t have to wait. No blood moon will have any effect on your eternal treasure. But neither will any other cultural decadent foolishness, nor political catastrophe, nor violence, nor war, nor rumors of war.

All this is predicated, of course, on you’re going to a church where Jesus, and not the moon or a political agenda, is the main thing. If the person on the stage, or whatever it is, forgets to mention him, or does it in passing, or in any other way draws your attention away from the point of being there, it’s probably not the best place to be. Even if the coffee afterwards is amazing. It’s ok to drain your cup and creep out the back to go find a pew elsewhere, a pulpit where Jesus himself is high and lifted up, where your heart and mind together are compelled to consider in him in all his mercy and glory.

What I’m trying to say is, Go To Church. It could be almost the end of the world. Or not. Just go.