Apocalypse How

Apparently on Saturday we get to meet Jesus.  

This, of course, led me to do what every person does when they’re anticipating meeting someone. I Facebook stalked him.

Turns out there are a number of people on Facebook that go by the name Jesus Christ. Sadly, having never met him, I couldn't pick Him by His profile picture so I had to do some old fashioned stalking from the books I have in my library.  Which felt a lot more academic than the sinister joy of finding 256 of His photos that don’t have privacy restrictions on them.

I started out with Anne Rice’s ‘Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt’.  Mostly, what I learnt from this book was that when Jesus was young he once wished a kid dead and then brought him back to life when he got into trouble. Oh, and he made a bird out of clay and brought it to life. I once made a clay ocarina that looked like a bird. If we’re hard up for conversation maybe I’ll bring that up.

Then I tried ‘The Nun’s Story’.  I enjoyed this book a little too much so I also watched the movie. Bad move. Audrey Hepburn is way too hot to play a nun. How am I supposed to focus on Jesus when she is making the habit look sexy! I will avoid this topic with Jesus.

‘First Light’. For a book about Jesus he played more of a cameo roll! Maybe I can ask him what he was up to for most of that book.

After all of those I decided that maybe I should go straight to the source and picked up the Bible. I got to Deuteronomy and when he still hadn’t appeared I gave up. I don’t know how the Jews are still waiting!

Which leads me to my number one apocalyptic question:-

One on the signs of the end times and subsequent apocalypse is the rebuilding of the Temple. However, the Jewish people are awaiting the arrival of the Messiah (and most of them, I bet, made it to the end of the Old Testament. How disappointing for them when He still hadn’t appeared by the last page!) to rebuild the Temple. I’m told this is so He can clear up some questions they have regarding how big a cubit actually is. Or, if they are really lucky and other Rabbis are correct, after the coming of the Messiah the Temple will descend in fire from heaven already completely built which will save a lot of work. Not including the cleaning of a few scorch marks it may receive on the way down.

So, the Jewish people are still waiting for the first coming (which, in order to be expecting a second coming, must have already happened) but the Christians are relying on them to build the Temple to signal the beginning of end times.  Without another first coming, which obviously there can’t be, there will be no Temple, without a Temple there will be no sign of the end times, without a sign there is no apocalypse. So what exactly is supposed to be happening on Saturday?

If there is a simple answer, and I am sure there is, my second question is what should I wear!