All I Want for Christmas is Judgment Day
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. [1]
It is remarkable how little we think about the end when the end comes, without fail, to us all. In studying a bit of philosophy, I am reminded how consuming has been man’s search for truth, how chronic his pounding questions: what is man? What is good? What is our ultimate end? Lately, we seem brilliant at ignoring these questions in the noise and nonsense of our times, but they’re not ignoring us. The nihilism, atheism, pragmatism and materialism of former philosophers still smog up the air we breathe today; and I daresay the story they whisper is wrong. I’m now two years into rigorous seminary study, and I am astounded by the ever-unfolding fitness of the Biblical narrative, how fully it speaks to the true end of man—both his telos, Greek for “goal” or “purpose,” and his hard-stop end at a headstone. Present culture, stumbling atop faulty premises, is proving inadequate for life in a larger story; and I believe man today is sick unto death because his ends are off.
The end is near, and I say bring it. The end of this earthly race, sayeth Scripture, is Judgment Day, when Jesus returns to judge the quick and the dead. When I say I crave that end, it is no mere lip-smacking for pie in the sky (although I expect pie and plenty of it). Nor is it a restless thirst for vengeance—haters gonna get theirs—because without the merciful cross of Christ, I’d be getting mine as well. The reason I’m so jazzed about the end is that, through my studies, I’ve been reacquainted with the epic story of God and man; and as Sesame Street taught us, every story has a beginning, middle, and an end. [2] The Bible, granted, is no breezy beach read, but it is a marvel of a narrative when you learn how to read its different genres. We’re studying the Pentateuch this summer, the first five books, and I’m finding that the tomes which are so often the death swamp of Bible reading plans (looking at you, Leviticus) have blossomed with heart and elegance, revealing God’s painstaking, gracious work woven right into human history. It is a story, but it’s no myth; archaeological findings give strong evidence that these events occurred within an exact ancient Near Eastern context. It is also astounding that the entire 66-book canon of Scripture, written in different eras, genres, and by different hands, could spin the same seamless, advancing storyline of God’s redemption of mankind and the whole earth. Only God could tell it; this is His story, and when you learn to read it as a unity, it shows an exquisite exposition, plot, climax and resolution. This story has a point.
Unfortunately, the humanistic beliefs we breathe without thinking are telling us the wrong story, and have pushed us into a toxic materialism. “All you see is all there is,” and “truth is relative,” so hey, just live for today and grab grab grab. Any transcendence or faith has long been debunked as from a primitive past, and yet we imagine we’ve come a long way baby with these ceaseless screaming screens and flat souls. We’re starving in the shallows. I hate when someone hands me a bag of Cheetos and sends me a feast-sized bill. That’s modern life: a torpid vat of fluff you pay for with your soul. Living water and daily bread are hardly sought, indeed, hardly believable, yet we hardly question the unchecked confidence that in spite of appearances, man is ever progressing toward a perfected state (pretty sure that was Hegel.) “Latest is greatest,” and what have we here? Man—at his apex!—wasting his days acquiring, swiping, striving and dying inside. Now look, I ain’t above a Cheetos binge. But you gotta question junk food when it asks to run your life. I turn on the jamz just to chill for a sec, and here comes Pitbull philosophizing his way into my pants, and with terrible logic, too. “Give me all of you tonight! For all we know, we might not get tomorrow.” [3] No no. We’ll get tomorrow. I’ll either be waking up next to Pitbull or in the presence of God, and I really don’t want to explain to the latter what I was doing with the former.
I can’t get full on this fluff. You and I need a bigger story. I continue to marvel at the life-giving story of Scripture—a powerful Word which, though penned by human hands, is so clearly God-breathed, no matter what they told you (and me) in college. In fact, we’re looking into the liberal scholarship of the last few centuries, which posits that the text of the Old Testament was cobbled together from competing religious agendas. I find it exceedingly tedious, but it’s vital that we stay current on academic theory. Thankfully, my school teaches the text as an inspired whole, even as we seriously study the higher criticism that tends to deconstruct the text beyond cohesiveness. The trouble is not the reality of varied Hebrew source material, but the Enlightenment’s goal of “getting behind” the text to render Scripture merely another manmade record of a primitive people’s religious progression. This approach obscures the Bible’s own claim to be superintended and authored by God himself, and it clouds its striking and audacious message. Have you read this thing? This plot could not possibly have been manmade. What human delusion would create man in the image of a loving God, then pull that good and holy God down to earth to dwell with man in gracious covenant relationship, and finally put that good and holy God on a Roman cross to cancel man’s sin once and for all? Then write himself into an epilogue of eternal bliss in this God’s blazing presence? If this is man’s whimsy, it is absurd and even borders on psychotic. A message of such divine grace and condescension can only be humbly received, never invented. Even then, it is utterly beyond us.
This is not to throw out the Bible’s appeal to man’s reason. Reason is not off-limits; it just can’t be the starting point of true knowledge. Enlightenment philosophers tried to start with man to find man’s meaning and good, but if there is a God, revelation must come first—as a creature, man is not the center of his own meaning. And this revelation is not a burden but a marvelous scaffolding for building a life; it doesn’t answer all things exhaustively, but you can start nailing things to the wall when you have a sturdy frame. As C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.” [4] The right story situates us correctly, like learning the sun is the center of this system and not the earth. Something clicks when the story is true. It can also be troubling. To study Scripture is to realize that the Lord is no distant watch-winder of Deism; he has been uncomfortably close to human affairs from the get-go. Once you see him, he’s hard to unsee, and this level of study is not always the perky sitcom I’d rather be watching. In my spinelessness, I’ve often closed my books and said, “On second thought, I don’t want to know.” But the beauty of the story compels me onward. Shouldn’t we have to stretch to grapple with truth? Aren’t the questions of man and God the demand and duty of life? I don’t get to decide on truth, it gets to decide on me. If my life philosophy happens to approve everything I already think and want, that’s not a worldview, that’s 8-year-old me whose highest aspiration was to swim in a pool of M&M’s and make my sister my servant. (Still working on both, of course.)
I said I wanted a pool of these! A POOL! And bring me my royal flippers!
Like any good story, I yearn for the resolution. We all know the end is coming, one way or another. Whether we choke the oceans with plastic or the planet with pollutants or each other with nuclear night-night, or evolution throws up ironic memes of humanity—NAILED IT—and moves on to higher lifeforms, or we dial in our own demise by unleashing our AI overlords, or Jesus Christ returns to judge and restore the world he created—they can’t all happen, but they can’t none of them happen. We can distract ourselves to death, but our eggs are every day in one eschatological basket or another. If the Bible is true, Judgment Day is the glorious end when evil is finally canceled and peace and joy reign forever. “Behold, I make all things new!” [5] I’m ready for it. I’ve had my fill of sin and stupidity; I’ve got a mid-life taste for redemption. I’m a kid with a GoBots calendar, X’ing off days til my birthday. I’ve taken to praying, “Lord, how can we wrap things up today?” And I do the same offensive hand circles my dad used to use when my story was going long. I confess it, Lord—sometimes I feel this story is going long. Let’s wrap it up. Maranatha.
Lift up your eyes! Can you not see the end is near? Even should you live to a hundred years, this life is always on its way out. While we’re here, we’re on a gracious probation; but on that Day, the unrepentant “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” [6] I don’t like that any more than you do, but I’d be a pretty poor Christian if I didn’t hug the whole story. This house comes as-is; and contra Enlightenment hubris, we don’t get to deconstruct the framework and ditch the pieces we don’t like. Anyway, what’s not to like? The Bible offers stunningly good news for literally anyone who wants it. Salvation is a free gift. All can be freed from sin and welcomed into God’s presence forever because of the sacrifice of his own Son, not by anything we can do. We simply receive his forgiveness and trust him by faith. Who wants to go bust on this dulling bazaar of trinkets and trash anyway? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world—the whole world, Ma!— yet forfeit his soul? Money, fame, your game and your gain mean nothing on Judgment Day; but the end for a Christian is less nightmare and more Christmas morning. Something much better is on its way. For those who believe in Christ and crave his appearing, the end is just the beginning.
[1] Heb 9:27-28
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnoJwfnzmqA
[3] “Give Me Everything,” Songwriters: Afrojack, Ne-Yo, Pitbull; Planet Pit, 2011.
[4] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/c_s_lewis_162523
[5] Rev 21:5
[6] Matt 25:46