Doomsday
One of my favorite topics is the end of the world, Armageddon, Hell freezing over, and of course, the always popular, return of Jesus. Well, it has now been established that He shall return on Saturday, May 21, 2011. You can look it up. It must be true because some young, out-of-work, female in a show of extreme graciousness to advise the world to be ready for Judgement Day, bought advertising space on a bus bench in Colorado Springs, CO. It makes sense to me.
Have you ever been to Colorado Springs? Beautiful. Pike’s Peak dominates the town, I would imagine in a similar way that Jesus would dominate any group of people, large or small. You would think His charisma would be over-the-top. That makes Pike’s Peak the ideal metaphor: over-seeing; larger than life; all knowing, all seeing. The U.S. Air Force Academy has a marvelous chapel where He could do a few services, gather the sheep, so to speak, before wiping out the place and starting over again, if He so desires.
But wait! What if she is wrong? Hey, it could happen, right? I mean that she’s wrong, right? It’s like deja vu all over again. The Millerites had predicted that Jesus would return to Mother Earth on October 23, 1844. On his ascent back Home, he takes everyone worthy to go. Now, don’t even think about everyone, regardless of race, creed, color, religion, yada yada yada, is made in His Daddy’s image, and that both He and Him love us unconditionally, no matter what? Correcto mondo? Si.
So imagine their disappointment when He did not show for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. All that time and preparation and he doesn’t even call. But they called it, The Great Disappointment. That’s pretty clever, isn’t it. They were so disappointed that they just had to call it that. They had sold all of their wordly goods to the sinners they would be left behind – and now here they were – left behind without their worldly goods. It is enough to make one say to choice four-letter words.
But just like the media (Not them!), never let the facts get in the way of a good argument. (Just this past weekend, BP CEO 
Tony Hayward, Mr. PR Disaster Area himself, was widely reported in order: 1) In trouble; 2) Possibly on his way out; 3) Definitely on his way out; 4) He’s out with details of his “Golden Parachute”, including severance, pension, stocks, etc. And that was just Sunday.) By late Monday, it was reported that indeed, Tony was out as CEO, but heading to run their Russian unit; out but not out out. So much for speculative reporting with “inside knowledge”. Based on the parachute speculation, Tony got screwed by being banished to business-Siberia. On the upside, with nearly 60 % of the age 40-65 population blind with Vodka, he can do anything he wants and no one with neither know nor care.
But I digress. Jim Jones, with no formal theological training, shipped over 900 people to South America and ultimately convinced them to drink his cool aide, which of course killed them all. Thus the business phrase, “I don’t know what cool aide their drinking,” when questions about people’s sanity arise during negotiations. Interesting, Jones did NOT drink his own cool aide – he shot himself in the head. Odd.
And then there’s the Heaven’s Gate mass suicide. 39 people in died in San Diego in March 1997 with yet another give-up-your-earthly-possessions-because-we-are-all-going-home routines. Except this time, a new twist. A UFO, hiding behind the Hale-Bopp Comet, would take them away. Now, while there just is no explanation for taste, and this pretty much confirms there is no accounting for clarity of thought. A UFO. It’s gonna take them away to see Jesus. WWJD? He’d say, “Folks! Come on! Cut me a break.”
So let’s return to the latest prediction for May 21, 2011. Major league baseball will still be young. NBA and NHL playoffs will be in full swing
. Possibly He is coming down to tell LeBron just how badly he shafted Cleveland and will personally smote the Miami Heat in a four-game sweep by non-other the the LA Clippers. Oucha magoucha!
But what if, again, He fails to show, by descent or UFO, and we have yet another, Great Disappointment? Just how many of these no shows can we endure. It ultimately cost Sly Stone when he stopped coming to his own performances. C&W bad boy George Jones took a hit at the box office when he failed to show too many times. So why does Jesus get a break? Or maybe, just maybe, just like Bullwinkle to Rocky when he attempts to yet again, pull a rabbit from his hat, “This time for sure!” See ya May 22nd.//
