Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Amen, amen, I say to you,

you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices;
you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.

Recently millions of Americans enjoyed a good laugh at the expense of some Christian zealots who thought the world would certainly end on May 21. I have no idea how Reverend Harold Camping came up with the date except the claim he extracted it from numerology and The Book of Revelation. I suppose it’s good to be reminded of the Judgment Day periodically, but Catholics and many Protestant churches dedicate the season from November 1 through the First Sunday of Advent to that reflection. The minister did not explain why the Lord should appear on Saturday evening of the fifth Sunday of Easter. Perhaps a Christian tradition with such an idiosyncratic understanding of Revelation cannot include Easter in its computations.

But I can’t help but wonder if the May 21 campaign was a deliberate hoax, a marketing scheme to recruit religious consumers to a certain type of Christian church. That kind of marketing demeans both product and people. Religious merchants suppose the public can be frightened into repentance and that a fearful response is sufficient for “salvation.” Invariably, behind the mask of friendly salesmanship is condescension for consumers.  Whether they’re selling booze, beer, drugs or deliverance their contempt is palpable.

We find no such contempt in Jesus’ concern for his disciples. His farewell discourse expresses both his great fondness and his anxiety for them. He wants to take them home to the Father, but their time for departure has not yet come. Instead they will endure a time of weeping, mourning and grief. 

Discipleship in his way includes joy and sadness, disappointment and hope, fear and courage; and the Lord will not deny us the full experience of human life. It is all good, all beautiful, and entirely redemptive.

Reverend Camping’s brand of Christianity insults our intelligence and our faith. It dismisses our courageous presence in the world as irrelevant, as if we have nothing to give to the world but the dust off our shoes. Jesus sends us into a world which will cause us much grief, to bring the Gospel of Inexhaustible Grace.