Apocalypse Now...or maybe Later

Date: 20 March 2010 16:29:50

My feelings about going to the prayer group were justified. I wish I hadn't gone.

They (we?) are looking at Revelation (or as it's known in French, Apocalypse). Ever since I was a youngish teenager and we were shown a film about What Would Happen In a Nuclear War I have had a low level fear of talking/thinking about the End of the World - be that through the Second Coming or nuclear war. This includes reading Revelation - partly because it all sounds as though things are going to get very nasty before they get better. It's no good saying "Ah, yes, but everything will be lovely" - we still need to get through the nasty bit first. The thought of pain and burning and all other unpleasant things scares me - threaten me with such things and I will probably be scrawling my own big 666 on my forehead and right arm, before the Beast could do any forcing.And then that's me for the Eternal Lake of Fire when God finally triumphs, isn't it?!

Of course, that is if we take Revelation to be The Truth. Which I'm not truly sure I do. I'm not an Every-Word-Of-The-Bible-Is-Literally-True kind of gal, but several of the group are, and I struggled between being scared and trying not to laugh as there were attempts to try to decide exactly what was meant.

Apparently the current thinking is that the 12 stars mentioned in the passage in Rev 12:

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. ²She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. ³Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. ⁴His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. ⁵She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. ⁶The woman fled into the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

is meant to represent the EU...A good thing? Or a bad thing?There was mention of Turkey wanting to join the EUbut I'm not sure how that fitted into the story. Was it the dragon? The baby? I'd lost the thread by now: they were talking in fairly rapid French by now and I was retreating into silence (and getting IBS because I was so worked up. Yes, I know it's stupid, but...) The Beast is Gorbachev, or so The Book That Deciphers Revelation says. Presumably because the poor man has a birthmark - well, of course, everyone with a port wine birthmark is inherently evil, aren't they?

It all seems so silly to try to decipher something that may not have been meant to be deciphered anyway - I'm sure that every generation has tried to make links between the visions retold in Revelation and their present. Probably Henry VIII was identified as The Beast by the Catholics of the time (and Mary I in the same way by the Protestants of her time) And, in any case, I am of the Ostrich Persuasion: I won't be able to change what happens, so why think about it? Why not just let it happen...?

But despite my telling myself all this, I still get myself screwed into knots by thinking and worrying about it all.

I sometimes wish I had the unswerving faith that some of the members of the group have. Everything is very much black and white to them. You're Saved, or you're not. And if you're not, then it's the Burning Lake of Fire for you. I don't want to seem like I'm mocking them: I'm not, at all. They are lovely people, and their love and zeal for Christ is truly admirable.Maybe it's that that I wish I had, rather than the black-and-white view of the world. Their faith is so strong, and in a way, it seems an easier faith than mine - which is all questions, confusions, doubts and really not-sure-about-anything (which seems very wishy-washy) In fact, I'm not sure some of them really think I've "got there" yet! In fact, I'm not sure myself if I've really "got there"!

sigh

Anyway, I don't think I'll be going again until they've moved onto a different book. And as they're only on Chapter 12 that may be quite some time...