Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now

A Sermon to Countryside Church, Unitarian Universalist

Memorial Day Sunday, May 26, 2024

The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles

Recently after preaching to this congregation regarding the view taken by liberal bible scholars about the supposed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, someone asked if I would speak about the prediction of the Apocalypse in the Bible. They said they hear a lot about it from their more traditional friends, and were curious about what I might make about the stories of the End of Days.

“Nah,” I said. If I did that it would scare people.”

Then I thought about it and said, “Oh Boy!”

So, Apocalypse it is.

What No UU Minister Expects To Hear

In the 1980s, when I was serving as the parish minister to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Oak Park, Illinois, I had an experience that no Unitarian Universalist minister expects to have. I had a group of church members who were seriously worried that the apocalypse they’d heard about from scripture was about the happen, and wanted to know what they should do to prepare.

Now when someone talks about an apocalypse, you first need to figure out what they mean. The word “Apocalypse” comes from the Greek word for “uncovering of something hidden,” or more simply “revelation.” Revelation is the title of the final book in the modern Bible, and supposedly tells about the end of history.

But that’s not what most people mean by “Apocalypse.” If you spend a few minutes with Google you will discover that there is a whole literature out there about what the world would be like after the Apocalypse. But this post-apocalyptic literature, movies and programming tends to be about the invasion of zombies, a nuclear war, environmental collapse, or economic atrocity. Nothing to do with the Bible at all.

However, as I listened to my frightened parishioners, they were not worried about the end of the world due to the limits of resources, overpopulation, nuclear war or the proliferation of zombies. Instead, they were afraid that the Bible’s predictions were actually coming true.

Not A Small Matter

There are a lot of people who believe that the prophecies in the Bible about the End of Days are real. Some of these people are in high places, and we ignore that to our peril.

Many of you are old enough to remember the Secretary of the Interior during the Regan Administration - the person charged to oversee conservation. His name was James Watt, and at one point he actually dismissed the need for environmental conservation by saying, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”

There are other politicians in power who believe the same. In fact, I suspect there are more of them today then when Mr. Watt told us we didn’t need to worry about climate change because Jesus was coming back.

Imagining that there is a divine plan for the End of Days, imagining that maybe we might get special treatment, that people we don’t like will get their comeuppance, has an attraction. It’s an emotional get-out-of-jail-free card to excuse people from having to make the choices that actually shape the world.

People use it to avoid considering the warnings science gives us about objective problems like world hunger, injustice and climate. That’s a shame because we can choose to do something about those problems. But not if we convince ourselves that the seals will break, trumpets will sound and everything will be made new, without our having to lift a finger.

Which is what a whole lot of people believe. I kid you not.

The Biblical Account

Well, with regard to my parishioners, it turned out that there had been a program aired on a Christian Television network that was a pseudo-documentary. Supposedly scientists had fed news reports into a super computer that also could access any book ever written.

The computer came up with the conclusion that world events were following the predictions of the biblical Book of Revelation, exactly, and that the end of the world was due soon.

After a bit of investigation I learned that the company that produced this program for Christian television used an advertising agency that employed a member of my congregation. He was a bit of a strange person (and with Unitarian Universalists that’s saying something). He had them over to watch it, and as a prank, he told them that such a computer actually existed - and that the conclusions in the show were believed correct by influential scientists.

Now…I hope you heard what I just said. He did this as a prank. There was no actual supercomputer.

I got everyone calmed down, explaining the whole thing was a hoax and sent them home to turn back into rational adults. But I began to ponder why the Biblical mythology about the end of world holds such fascination for so many people.

The Book of Revelation

The Bible is full of prophecies. There are four Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and twelve Minor Prophets.

If you are like me, raised in a traditional Christian Sunday School, you probably were taught that these prophets were making predictions about the problems and crises that would befall the Hebrew people, and which did come to pass.

However, what liberal scholars believe today is that all the “prophecy” in scripture was actually retrospective.

That is, the prophecies were written after, sometimes considerably after, the events they recount took place. They weren’t predictions. They were explanations.

We know this because modern archeology lets us carbon date the ruins and artifacts that have survived, and the rapidly changing language styles of ancient tongues allow us to know approximately when a text was written.

Something bad happened and people were shocked and uncertain.

The prophet would come along and minister to the spiritual needs of the people by coming up with a narrative to explain why the calamity occurred. This was comforting because it provided an explanation. And it explained what could be done to prevent such things in the future.

Think back to when you learned about the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Many you probably were glued to your televisions, astonished and shaken, wondering how such a thing could happen.

At first you could hardly believe it. Such things were not supposed to happen in America. But then leaders, functioning much like the ancient prophets, explained it to you.

You learned about al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. You learned about the temperature at which jet fuel burned and steel melted. You learned about the poor security at airports.

Gradually you assembled these into a narrative and you understood what had happened. The Transportation Security Administration came into being, and we all got used to taking our shoes at the airport. This provided a measure of comfort, because we now felt we understood what had happened and what we could do to avoid such things. It worked. There has not been a hijacked aircraft since.

That’s the service the Biblical Prophets provided to the people of their time as well. But the service was explanatory, not clairvoyant.

The Interpretation of the Book

The Book of Revelation is the final book in the New Testament. We have no idea who the author of the Book of Revelation was, as the only thing he calls himself is “John.”

Traditionally, people thought he was the apostle John who knew Jesus of Nazareth, but more recent scholarship casts doubt on that because of the style of writing. These days he’s typically referred to as “John of Patmos,” after the Greek island the Aegean Sea where he said he was living in exile.

From the style of the writing we can date the book to the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian, who reigned between the years 81 and 96 CE.

If you’ve ever tried to read the Book of Revelation you probably gave up. The book is a jumble of prophecies, symbols, metaphors, including a Seven-Headed Dragon, the Beast, the Antichrist, the Serpent and many others. It is so confusing and vague that one can argue for almost any interpretation.

That said, the book contains some of the most amazing religious imagery ever created. There shall come “A new heaven and a new earth.” “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised, incorruptible.” The image of a “New Jerusalem” and much more.

Scholars classify the book as an example of “the cosmic combat archetype,” or a primordial battle between order and chaos.

This is an archetypal theme found in religious literature around the globe. We see it in this book, in the battle between Jehovah and someone called The Beast 666. We also see it in the Mesopotamian battle between Marduk and the dragon Taimat from 1000 BCE. We see it in Luke Skywalker taking on Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars movie. An archetypical theme.

But if you have orthodox or mainstream friends or family, they probably believe the Book of Revelation foretells the end of the world, the final victory of Jehovah, the return of Jesus of Nazareth and the resurrection of the dead.

Here is what they believe will happen.

The Traditional View.

The tale begins with the Time of Signs and Wonders, when things will happen that hint at the coming End of Days. Events are said to unfold with the breaking of seven seals (think of wax seals on an official proclamation).

This is what got my former parishioners so upset. The fake computer was supposedly looking at things that were happening - wars, famines, plagues, which were all supposed to happen during the Time of Signs and Wonders.

Then the seals break.

The breaking of the first seal will result in the rise a white horse, ridden by a man wearing a crown and holding a bow. This first horseman of the Apocalypse is Conquest.

The breaking of the second seal will result in war. The symbol is a red horse made from fire with the rider holding a large sword.

The breaking of the third seal results in Famine. The symbol is a black horse whose rider holds a pair of scales (the way food would be measured).

The breaking of the fourth seal results in Plague, symbolized by a pale horse ridden by Death. There would be a massive die off.

The breaking of the fifth seal results in something called the Tribulation. The world will become a dark place with crime, disorder and lawlessness. Prior to this 144,000 Orthodox Jews will be lifted off the earth, avoiding the Tribulation as their reward. Also will come the Rapture, when a vast number of faithful people will ascend from the earth into heaven and also avoid the Tribulation.

I should note the Rapture is an interpretation of a verse from 1 Thessalonians in the New Testament. It is not explicitly mentioned by name anywhere in the Bible, regardless of what some might tell you.

The breaking of the sixth seal ends the Tribulation. There will be massive destruction including a meteorite impacts, followed by the breaking of the seventh seal which brings with it an immense silence.

Then there will be a series of trumpets. The first six are a wake-up call for sinners to repent. More woes will come. Each trumpet blast brings with it some new calamity.

The final trumpet allows the rise of three beasts. The first beast is a red dragon with seven heads. This is Satan himself. The second beast emerges from the sea and also has seven heads. For some reason people worship it. Then, there arises a third beast from the ground in the shape of a lamb, who announces how wonderful the second beast is. This is the Antichrist. He brands his followers with a mark, the number 666.

Then come seven bowls poured out on the earth, each bringing a new hardship.

There will be a tremendous battle between the forces of the Antichrist and the forces of Jehovah, and it will take place at on a mound in northern Israel called Migiddo, and the battle will be called Armageddon. The sun will turn black, the moon will turn red and the stars will fall to earth. The sky itself will be rolled up and every mountain and island leveled.

Jesus himself then appears. After a thousand year gap, time ends and a new world begins. All people will be living with God in a New Jerusalem.

My Personal View

Let me be transparent here. I do not expect anything in the Book of Revelation to happen because I believe that it already has.

I am one of the Bible scholars who believe that the events recounted in the Book of Revelation were retrospective, just like every other prophecy in the Bible. It was written to explain the persecution experienced by the Christian community in the first century under Emperor Domitian and his predecessors.

The Jesus people didn’t know what to think. Jesus had supposedly triumphed over death and everything was supposed to be better. But it obviously was not. Everywhere they looked they were persecuted. The Emperor Domitian was on the throne in Rome but his predecessor, Nero, persecuted the follows of Jesus without mercy. That was not supposed to happen.

The apostles of Jesus had predicted a time of good will and peace to come in the wake of Jesus. Instead, Rome became yet another example of a dominator culture - there was political oppression, there was economic oppression, there was theological oppression. All good things in the world were being gathered into Rome and distributed to a privileged aristocratic %1. That was not supposed to happen.

Just like in our time, the fall of the World Trade Center was not supposed to happen.

Like prophets everywhere, John wrote to provide a retrospective explanation. His purpose was to offer hope.

To scholars such as myself, the Antichrist was non-other than Nero. In ancient alphabets, letters often were used as numbers (think of Roman Numerals) and if you work out the number for Emperor Nero, it is 666, the same number as the Book of Revelation gives to the Antichrist.” The Seven-Headed Dragon, and the later seven-headed Beast, were nothing other than the Imperial City of Rome itself, with its famous seven hills.

John was proposing Rome’s downfall and what he hoped would be the eventual triumph of the followers of Jesus. He was trying to symbolically explain why things had gone wrong and that the future would be better.

He was mistaken. Rome would continue it’s oppression for another 300 years. Jesus did not return. Things did get better, but not for a long time. But people would cling to the hope of a better tomorrow. I think we can understand that desire with empathy.

So there you have my view. The Book of Revelation was not a prediction. Like prophecy throughout the Bible, it was a retrospective explanation for what had happened, and offered an interpretation that could give hope for the future. That’s no small thing.

Predicted Events

Were you to share my opinion with more orthodox believers they would dismiss it. They would point to things happening around the world now, which they would claim were predicted to happen during the Time of Signs and Wonders. Wars. Rumor of Wars. Fame. Plague.

But there is trick the brain plays on us. Your brain evolved to keep you safe, not to make you happy. One of the ways it keeps you safe is encouraging you to overlook the past in favor of focusing on the possible danger of the future.

Years ago in the cancer care movement there was a popular theory that most people who got cancer had experienced some major loss within two years of diagnosis. There were books written that cancer was really a profound grief response.

However, social scientists realized that that just about everyone has experienced some major loss within any two-year time slice. Loss is just part of life. So, yeah, cancer patients reported such losses, but so did people who did not develop cancer.

That’s the problem with all the popular predictions of an imminent apocalypse. There have always been wars, and rumors of wars. There has always been sickness. There has always been famine. There have always been authoritarian leaders. These things are not unique to our time.

The Apocalypse Is Popular

So, there really isn’t anything to the belief in the End of Days. But we get hooked.

A year doesn’t go by when I do not encounter some religious movement or preacher announcing the the Apocalypse is coming and we need to “get right with God” by giving them money and doing what they say.

There have literally been hundreds of end-time declarations - Christian and otherwise.

Remember the Harmonic Convergence? How on December 12, 2012 the Mayan Calendar was supposed to run out of dates and for some reason that was important?

There were people everywhere predicting that the equator would realign, the poles would switch, a rogue planet would crash into the earth or a massive solar flare would happen. Remember? I do. I was a parish minister at the time and there were people who showed up at church to wave crystals, burn sage and pray. Nothing happened.

Ever hear about the Millerites, followers of William Miller who declared the Apocalypse would happen in 1843? It didn’t, and his followers declared what they called “The Great Disappointment,” and founded the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Something similar happened with the Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even Billy Graham thought the End Times were close. You do not have to look hard to find these folks. You probably have them in your own family.

The Hold On The Mind

On this Memorial Day when we remember those we’ve loved and lost, especially those who died in service to making this world better, choosing to risk their lives. Let’s all resolve to take care of the world they, and others, protected. And let us honor John of Patmos, mistaken though he was. He was upset about oppression in the world of his time. We should be too. However, we should try to do something about it. Not wait passively for the trumpets to sound, or someone else to solve our problems.

Remember that. Especially in times like these. And that’s my sermon.