Painting by Adolph Hiremy Hirschl |
I grew up listening to a
lot of stories about the imminent end of the world. Jesus spoke pretty much about it and we
listened to those biblical verses in the church often enough. The romantic dreamer in Jesus conjured up a
vivid image of “the Son of Man” coming in his glory on the final judgment day,
escorted by all the angels. In that glorious
vision, God is a King ensconced on a glittering throne. The entire mankind will assemble before
him. No one is given a choice, of
course. The King will weigh the virtues
and sins of each person and accordingly assign heaven or hell.
It was my childish fancy
that the gala event would come soon and I would escape from the misery of life
on the earth. I don’t remember whether I
gloated about sitting in heaven and smirking at all the sinners burning in
hell.
As I grew up I realised
that Jesus had imagined all those things long ago and nothing happened in all
those 2000 years. In my own little
lifetime I came across many other prophets who smugly predicted the end of the
world. Some of them became fabulously
wealthy as many people set store by the prophecy and donated their wealth
hoping to secure seats in heaven.
I’m now reading a novel, The Book of Strange New Things by Michel
Faber, which is set on an alien planet that is being domesticated by the
Americans who hope to sell seats to the privileged rich on the earth as the
planet is nearing its end. [My review of
the novel will appear in this space tomorrow.]
It is typical of Americans to think of a heaven whose seats will be sold
commercially. They have not left
anything more on the earth to be commercialised.
The novel made me ask a
question to myself: would I like to buy a seat in that American heaven? I scorned myself for asking that
question. My childish longing for Jesus’
heaven was less ridiculous.
What if the world
ends? Nothing, I guess. I escape from what the Buddha called a
misery, life’s misery. The Buddha wasn’t
romantic enough like Jesus to imagine some fantastic heaven up there. He was profoundly practical to understand
that existence was the biggest pain. He
hated existence. Would he have welcomed
the end of the world gleefully? I can’t
imagine the Buddha smiling anyway, even at the prospective end of the
world.
But I prefer the Buddha
to Jesus, notwithstanding the fecundity of the latter’s imagination.
What Jesus said is true because His calendar is different than ours. Our 1000 years is just like a day to Him ( ref: 2 Peter 3: 8,9 ). The end will come, but that's not the end, there is life after death. Read the following:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/death-is-not-the-end-of-our-story/
Good wishes!
I would recommend you to watch a movie called man from Earth. Its available on YouTube.
ReplyDeleteYou will surely enjoy it.
If possible write an article about it..
ReplyDelete