In the seventies, a man in his twenties named Douglas Adams conceived of a radio series called

“The Ends of the Earth.”

The idea was a six episode comedy science fiction series where the Earth was destroyed a different way each time for a different reason.

I recall reading him writing that he was not feeling particularly good about the world at that time.

He eventually used part of this idea for a radio series that begins with the destruction of the Earth:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

We now have the radio series, a series of novels, and a couple of movies based on this idea. But we never got to see the other five ways Adams would destroy the world.

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

I grew up in a church where we talked about the end of the world

A LOT.

We had a list of things that had to happen before the end of the world, among them:

• Many running to and fro.
• Earthquakes
• Wars and rumors of war
• Restoration of Israel
• Reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem

Usually these things were said as a way to let us know that

The End Is Near!

It could be any day now. (Bear in mind that this was 50 years ago.)

But we have to be close, right? Jesus should be here ANY MINUTE now, right Let’s look at a little bit of history:

After the ascension of Jesus, at first there were no Gospels written. Some of Paul’s letters were written before the Gospels.

Why wouldn’t anyone write an account of the life and ministry of Jesus?

Writing was expensive. Ink and parchment or leather were not in great supply.

• Writing an entire scroll about Jesus would be a large investment.
• First century word processors were very primitive and didn’t even have spellcheck.
• And most importantly: Followers of Jesus expected him to return very soon – within their lifetimes.

After those who had known Jesus began to pass away, the need to write a record became more urgent.

But the end of the world didn’t happen 2000 years ago.

Bishop Hilary of Poitiers predicted the end of the world in the year 365, probably relating a day to a year (which is 365 days) to come up with 365 years. This also did not happen.

Bishop Martin of Tours predicted the end of the world by the year 400. He was off by at least 1624 years.

Three different people – Hippolytus of Rome, Sextus Julius Africanus, and Irenaeus – did some calculations based on the dimensions of Noah’s Ark and came up with the round number of the year 500. A trinity of wrongness.

Sextus Julius Africanus revised this date to the year 800.

Good Friday and the Feast of the Annunciation happened ton the same day in the year 992, leading many to believe the world would end in three years. That’s an interesting, yet inaccurate, prophetic sign.

Humans like round numbers and most of us work in base 10, so there was some panic around the date January 1 1000. It ended up being as momentous as the odometer rolling over to all zeroes on your car.

That was revised by some to 1033, as that would be 1000 years after the death of Jesus. Still wrong.

Pope Innocent III connected the rise of Islam and the number 666 to come up with the date 1284. Creative and perhaps a bit Islamophobic, but wrong.

The Black Plague was a terrible time in Europe and many thought it was the end of days. It wasn’t.

The idea that, according to the Byzantine calendar, the start of the 15^th century marked the transition from the seventh to eight millennium led the Russian Orthodox Church in 1408 to not compute the date of Easter beyond 1491.

They eventually had to resume that calculation.

After this, there was no shortage of dates set for the end of the world:

1504, 1525, 1528, 1533, 1534, 1555, 1585, 1588…

Martin Luther predicted the end of the world by 1600.

Since then, there has been a prediction for the end of the world in nearly every decade, and often several in a given decade.

Some were biblical scholars. Some were astrologers. Some were mystics. Some were clergy. Some were men and some were women. They all had one thing in common: They were all wrong.

Since then, we’ve had world wars. We’ve had despots. We’ve had genocide. We’ve had economic disasters. We’ve had famine. We have had plagues and pandemics. We’ve had tornadoes, snowstorms, and hurricanes. We’ve had floods and wildfires. We’ve had volcanoes and yes, as we know here in Humboldt County California, we’ve had earthquakes.

We’re still here.

Are humans really that bad at reading the signs of the end of the world? Or did we just get a bad list of prophetic signs?

In general, people like to solve puzzles. It’s why we like jigsaw puzzles, Sudoku, bridge puzzles, chess puzzles, murder mysteries…

And when someone gives us sets of prophetic signs, we want to figure it out.

But is that what these passages are for?

I don’t think Daniel is giving signs to look for so much as giving comfort that the people will be delivered. It’s a promise that when things turn really bad, God will be with the people to see them through.

Peter, James, John, and Andrew are anxious about events to come. Jesus seeks to give them hope:

When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.

⁸For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

– Mark 13:7-8, NRSV

I know things are looking scary for some people. I am one of those people.

The promises of Jesus are not “If you do your math right, you can figure out the date.” The promises of Jesus are that God is with us in the toughest times.

We might want God to fix things for us in difficult times, but that is generally not the miracle we get. We get the miracle of a god who, in Jesus, walks with us in the shadows as well as the light. We get the teachings and example of someone who didn’t live in luxury and power but who lived in the streets and in the homes of those who invited him, caring for the least powerful people.

Is this the end? Absolutely. Things are always ending and beginning. The end of a minute and the beginning of a new minute. The end of some intact vegetables and the beginning of a meal. So there is always and end, and there is always a beginning.

Is this the end of all things? Almost certainly not. I say “almost” because no one – least of all me – knows the hour, or even the day or year.

In between are ends and beginning of larger things: companies, nations, religious denominations. Those happen more rarely, but they happen, and they can be painful.

So my challenge for those of us who are anxious is to pray, meditate, whatever we do to connect with the divine, and to seek comfort in a god who loves us.

And my challenge for those of us who know someone who is anxious is to pray, meditate, whatever we do to connect with the divine, and to seek to comfort those who need it.

We don’t have a promise that anything will go on forever. And we don’t have certainty about when things will end. But we have a promise that God will be with us, even to the ends of the earth.

Amen.

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.