The Mayan Calendar and the End of the Age

It is about to be the 21st of December, 2012.  Some claim that the Mayans predicted that this will be the end of the world.  This is an opinion derived from the fact that the Mayan calendar ends on the 21st.  It is a strange thought really – the end of a calendar means that it is the end of the world.  According to that logic modern cultures around the world predict the end of creation every year on the 31st of December.  We all see the fault in that idea.  In old Books of Common Prayer (BCP’s) there are charts used to determine when a holiday will fall and they each project out for a set number of years but nobody ever said the church was predicting the end of the age.  The number of years included are simply the number of years that fit in the publication.  I am sure the Mayan calendar ends where it does because they ran out of space for the purpose of including any additional dates.

Why the fascination with the Mayan calendar?  It is odd to me that so many people wonder if the Mayan calendar really points to the end but discounts Scripture as ancient myth.  I think it is because there is simply an attraction to the unknown or the exotic.  Over the years various cultures with which we are not familiar rise and fall in popularity including Egypt, the many countries of the Far East, and various Native American tribes, among others.  We tend to like things we do not know much about.  There is a certain mystery that comes with foreignness that people find appealing.

Why then do people not find the mystery of God appealing?  I believe it is because most people think that they have God figured out.  There is a perception that there is no mystery.  People know the God of their childhood Sunday School lessons and find Him to be lacking.  Kind, loving, great “flannel graphs” but none of this continues to hold one’s interest when the troubles of adult life vie for attention.  But there is more to God than we can ever know while still on this side of life.  Your Sunday School class did not tell you the full story – just like elementary school math class did not teach you calculus.  The Bible tells us in 1st Corinthians that we do not know all nor will we anytime soon: For now we see in a mirror dimly.  The day will come when we will know more but for now we only see a shadow of God’s complete will for us and the rest of His creation.  We do not always even know what we need to tell God in prayer but He provides for our lack of knowledge.  Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  Romans 8:26

By the time I post this it will already be tomorrow in other parts of the world – I am confident that if anyone there was to find this blog they are still around to read it.  Enjoy today and enjoy tomorrow (and all the tomorrows that come after that) – God has given them to us and it is He, not an ancient calendar that will eventually bring an end to the age.

Consider what the Bible has to say on the subject of the end of days as we know them:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. 

Matthew 24:35–36

But do not worry – when it happens you will know it.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.

1 Thessalonians 4:16

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