"Are you still here?!!"

A funny thing about the Mayans, those calendar making mavens who created all the furor over what might happen on December 21, 2012 - some of it seriously catastrophic, other parts just plain silly.  They weren’t predicting anything about there being an “end of the world”.  Their incredibly complex calendar, which appears to be nothing more than a highly accurate device for measuring seasons, solstices, and the path of the Sun around the ecliptic, simply stops at the end of a cycle of 5,125 years, or what they called the 13th Baktun.[1]  The stone on which this calendar was carved was inscribed at a little past the mid-point (in the 6th or 7th Baktun) of the time frame it represents. We just happened to turn up at the end of it, when their extremely long calendar cycle was due to, reset.  Consequently, a big disappointment for those hoping for a front row seat at Armageddon.

Not all "Doomsday" warnings should be laughed off, however.

Jesus of Nazareth warns of an "End of the Age",[2] which weaves perfectly into numerous other passages recorded in Scripture that describe various aspects of a larger concept - not labeled Doomsday, but referred to over and over as the "Day of the LORD".[3]  This prophecy should be taken seriously, not because it appears in some obscure "Jewish Chronicles", but in the written Word of God.

Why should we believe the Bible, though?  Here is one of the reasons why I do:  

No other Faith, Discipline, Religion - whatever you want to call the Path that Christian followers of Jesus walk - is as brutally honest, or as balanced.  This is because the gods Man creates by and large are one dimensional.  They're capricious, or powerful, or benign, perhaps fertile, maybe fast, even artistic, or any of the countless other qualities humans look to in a divine being.  They're also known mainly BY these very qualities:  There's the "god of war" (Mars, Ares), the "goddess of love" (Venus, Aphrodite), the "god of thunder" (Thor, Zeus), the spirit of the brook, the field, the hearth, wine, etc., and so on. 

Like many cultures, the Maya had a sun god. (Well, they actually had several.)  The most notable they called Kinich Ahau, who appeared in tangible form as a firebird.  His Aztec counterpart, Quetzalcoatl,[4] had perhaps the most complex mythology of indigenous America, BUT, even he takes the form of other gods when he performs his different functions. He has no sophistication in and of himself to draw from. And although "scholars" in various fields may try to add depth to these man-made deities[5] and attempt to reduce the Biblical Creator - Jesus - to a place in the pantheon of mythological immortals, it simply remains that no other god is described as multi-faceted or complete as the LORD of Heaven and Earth revealed in “Judeo-Christian” scripture.

Paradoxically, this multi-dimensionality is often the very thing that skeptics latch onto when deriding our faith in the God of Scripture.  Atheist Richard Dawkins has this to say, "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, blood thirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filiacidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."[6]   

But God Himself is the One who plainly reveals his manifold character in the Word He inspired His prophets to pen.  And He holds nothing back.  He is jealous, with the jealousy a husband has for his bride. But to say that Yahweh [Hebrew for "I AM"] is "a petty, UNjust, UNforgiving control freak", with all the other labels Dawkins and other atheists have attributed to the Maker whom they brush off as a work of fiction, exposes the fact that they have barely skimmed the surface of the Writings in which the Almighty has revealed Himself. 

The "I AM" I have come to know in my study of His Word is "gracious and merciful; slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. Yahweh is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works". (Psalm 145:8-9)  He promised to send a Redeemer to do away with the blood sacrifices He required of His people, to teach them of the consequences of their sin. This Redeemer turns out to be none other than HIMSELF, taking on the physical form of His own creation, becoming a Man. 

It took Yahweh 1,600 years, using 40 faithful Apostles and Prophets, writing 66 books comprising 1189 chapters to reveal Himself in what we call Scripture. So this short essay cannot begin to touch the full panoply of God and His wonders.  Suffice it to say that the "I AM" revealed in Scripture is far above a one-dimensional Wood Sprite or shape shifting power usurper like Quetzalcoatl.

Back to Doomsday then. When Jesus - the Son revealed as Creator of time and the very fabric of the universe - warns us that only the Father knows the day and the hour He will visit His wrath upon Mankind, we are foolish to look to human constructs like stone calendars or coded utterances from Nostradamus in an attempt to divine a point in time that the One from Beyond Time has hidden from us![7]  

The Wrath on that Day will be no laughing matter, and no amount of scoffing or ridicule[8] will hold it back. But as I mentioned above, the message of Scripture is balanced; God's wrath is answered and a remedy is provided in the gift God makes of His Son.  The One who made us and became one of us took on Himself the punishment we deserve.[9]  

Oh, for those who protest, "We DESERVE?", consider this:  If you were to build a car for the sole purpose of blowing it up on film, and then posted that video on the internet for the entertainment of your friends and yourself, you would cry "FOUL!" if I were to protest your right to do so, using your ownership of the car as justification.  By the same reasoning, God can destine us for whatever purpose He deems fit, as vessels of wrath or children He intends to adopt.  Who are we to question[10] His means, method, motive or morality, especially when He tells us what He's doing, and offers us respite?

And the Mayan who carved the monolith which prompted all the folderol culminating in that delightfully resounding no-show yesterday?  No matter what sprite or spirit, river nymph or sun deity he may have worshipped during his time here on Earth, he knows the Face of Truth, now.  Has for 6 or 7 Baktuns....

[1] A cycle of 394.26 years. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baktun
[2] Read it from the Source: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24&version=NIV
[3] Here's a search on the phrase: http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=%22day%20of%20the%20Lord%22&version1=9&searchtype=all&limit=none&wholewordsonly=no
[4] Quetzalcoatl's story includes aspects of death and resurrection, but even then, he becomes a different god, rather than achieving the  culmination of his His Incarnation.  see http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/americas/maya/articles.html
[5] From http://www.strangenotions.com/richard-dawkins-and-the-god-of-the-old-testament/#
[6] For those who need examples, merely find the 'Comments' section of anything even remotely religious posted online on sites like CNN, but be warned, it can get very nasty!  http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/23/explaining-the-popes-christmas-debunking-book/
[7] Note that the "day and hour" was knowledge He divested HIMSELF of while found in temporal form...yes, a seeming "contradiction"--but that's a discussion for another post....
[8] Read how Saint Peter foretold the mockery we're seeing in all levels of society today, and read a chilling New Testament account of The Day the OT prophets spoke of over and over in this wonderful paraphrase: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%203&version=MSG
[9] See 2 Corinthians 5:21 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%205:21&version=NIV
[10] Read it in Paul's words: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%209:18-24&version=NIV