Not too many Christians took this latest prediction, and the man who made it, all that seriously. (If setting a specific date was not enough, how about “the rapture” rolling across time zones, starting somewhere near New Zealand?) But while many folks derided the prediction itself, it seemed to me that few people questioned the basic assumption behind it: that the world is going to “end.” Christians and non-Christians alike were left to reckon with the question: is this what Christians really believe? Is God waiting for the opportune moment to smash the world to bits? Is this what Christianity is all about?

For all of the God-talk out there these last few weeks, it seemed to me that not much of it was very good. The image of God behind all the “end is near” press is one of a vindictive and secretive divine being just waiting to unleash his fury, hardly the God that we have come to know. We have come to know something about this God, not by deciphering a secret code in the Bible, but by entering into the story of Jesus. In Jesus, we behold the real God, forgiving, loving, healing, suffering, dying, and yes, rising again. And, if there is any doubt about what the future holds, check out Revelation 21. New heavens and a new earth. Restoration. Healing. Justice. Peace.

All of this has served to highlight, for me, what it means to be the Church, and what the Church is thereby summoned to do. Life in the Spirit is not about escaping from a doomed world but about living within and transforming a broken world, one for which our Lord himself was broken. It is about being saved–from sin, from despair and meaninglessness, even from ourselves–and then becoming part of the saving, too, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I, for one, struggle with a vision of the world that looms in the future. The problems seem too big and insurmountable. But I hold on to the vision of the church–yes, this church–as the place where the answers begin, where healing happens, where faith and hope are restored, where love is experienced, where eternal life is. Now, more than ever, the world needs what we’ve got!

As we are summoned to pray for all the many needs of people everywhere, and actively work for justice, mercy and healing, let us not neglect to pray for Redeemer, too, for our children, our youth, our leaders, our ministries. May we welcome with open arms that for which we pray when we say, with joy and not fear, “your kingdom come!”

Nice day here, a long way from the Gulf of Mexico.  It might very well be one of those days there, too, although I am told the fumes rising off the surface of the gulf waters are quite unpleasant.  It’s easy for me to keep ecological disasters at a distance, as “someone else’s problem,” as something I can forget, not being in my backyard.  But what constitutes my backyard, or your backyard, has changed over the years.  Something about this disaster feels very close to home.

The anxiety that I feel over this latest crisis is heightened by my particular job, which is to speak of God to “the world.”  I’m not sure the language that we customarily speak of God and faith is wide enough to speak to this particular crisis, especially language which (all too often) is about private religion, about “me and God.”  What exactly does God–or, indeed, do Christians–have to say about this disaster?  Or the larger degradation of our planet?  Or our role in it?

When the oil flow was finally (well…partially) capped last week, we all breathed a kind of sigh of relief; the worst seemed to be over, at least the first harrowing episode of “the worst.”  But what struck me was that most of the oil was now going into a tanker, its intended target all along.  It was now salable.  Good thing for BP, absolutely, and a good thing for us, too.  It is, after all, our need and our bondage to the stuff that made this whole tragedy possible.  And it was our insistence that the dirty work be done far out of view, 60 miles offshore, which contributed to the difficulty in stopping it.

It is sad, indeed,this mess we’ve created.  And yet it is a sadness that prevents me from pointing blame and finding easy scapegoats. It is a sadness, acknowledging God creator and acknowledging the failure of human stewardship of that good creation.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, on perhaps another lovely day, I will get in my car and drive again.