Caught up in the Rapture

This entry may be my last. If at least some of us disappear suddenly from planet Earth this Saturday, it has been nice knowing my family and friends.

May 21 is supposed to be Judgment Day, when Jesus gathers his Christian followers into the heavens, leaving behind nonbelievers, according Harold Camping, president of Family Radio. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Camping calculates May 21 as the big day because allegedly it’s exactly 7,000 years from the date of the Noah’s Ark flood. Camping estimates that 200 million people worldwide will disappear into the heavens. The other 7 billion humans are SOL. (I’ll use the clean translation: So outta luck.) The rest may die in a massive global earthquake. (What? The 9.0 magnitude temblor in Japan wasn’t the Big One?)

Rapture watchers have pointed to signs such as the mysterious mass deaths of birds; fish dying by the thousands in Southern California waters; huge earthquakes in China, Japan, and Haiti; floods in the Midwest; the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; and global climate change.

While I follow Jesus, I don’t believe the rapture is going to happen Saturday for two reasons. First, I’ve been through this before. In 1972 a Jehovah’s Witness friend warned me to prepare for the Second Coming that year. As a naïve eight-grader whose father is a Pentecostal Christian, I not only believed my friend, I spread the news to other schoolmates. When the Second Coming didn’t come, I lost credibility with my friends. One of them broke off our friendship.

Second, I tend to agree with Mark 13:32-33 in the Bible: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.” (New International Version) So, if neither the angels nor Jesus Christ knows when the rapture will occur, how would a mere mortal know? After all, the Bible is not The Da Vinci Code.

But, to be safe, I will make copies of my house keys and drop them off with my siblings before Saturday so my two cats can be fed and kept safe. Although I follow Jesus, I don’t presume to believe I will be gathered up by him. Nor do I presume that my siblings and friends will die in a massive earthquake. I just hope to be ready if it happens.

Writing Diva