January 1, 2024
2024+: THE YEARS AHEAD.
The Economist, a British weekly, still thriving since 1843, publishes each yearend, a 90 pages projection of the following year. Where they need 90 pages, I will do in less than 900 words, because I take an unorthodox approach that no one else uses: I quote Jesus. Do you trust him?
Karl Barth, that down-to-earth theologian, had as his preaching motto: Have the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other. I too will follow his rule.
Jesus, in his astonishing relay, recorded in Matthew 24, outlines how the last days will enfold. We, today, experience an amazing resemblance between what Jesus predicted 2,000 years ago, and what is happening now. Read that chapter: everybody has access to a Bible.
Take verse 6.
There Jesus mentions wars and rumours of war. Today, more than ever, we see war in Israel/Palestine, we see it in Ukraine, we see it in Africa. And rumours of war aplenty, such as war between the USA and China, between Israel and Iran, to give just 2 examples. The current fighting in Gaza could well spread to occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where the Islamist group has active cells and higher levels of popular support. The risk of escalation between Israel and the formidable Iran-backed Shia faction Hezbollah to the north in Lebanon, also remains high.
The chapter continues: (verse 10) “Many will turn away from the faith”.
That is now also happening. Churches everywhere in the West are dying. This too makes true Jesus’ words: “Will I find faith on earth when I return? (Luke 18: 8).
In verse 11 of Matthew 24, Jesus mentions “False prophets will arise and seduce many”.
Look at Donald Trump, who crowns himself as the Modern-Day Christ: he tells the world that he is ‘the retribution’, as if he bears the sins of the world, a blasphemy unequaled in the world’s history. He is the father of lies, the embodiment of evil. And the church-goers? Many ‘believe’ in him!
Look at verse 15: “So when you see standing on the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ of which Daniel speaks – let the reader understand.”
I have a few comments there. First here Jesus calls Creation ‘holy’, because, as Psalm 24 unambiguously states: ‘the earth is the Lord’s and its total contents, including animals, trees, the seas, the air and the dry lands.’ Second: Climate change is the abomination that causes desolation. Third: let the reader understand. Only WE, of all previous generations can understand these words, because we experience these sins against God’s Holy Creation.
Today the natural world is reaching a new series of tipping points. Wildlife populations have plunged by an average of almost 70% since 1970. Today, due to unprecedented heat in the Antarctic, thousands of baby penguins are going to die. The usually stable sea ice that colonies rely on to rear their young in the Bellingshausen Sea just isn’t there, causing a “catastrophic breeding failure”. The same is happening in the Arctic with the polar bears. At both poles unprecedented heat, 39C above normal is being recorded.
The United Nations to date have organized 28 continuous years of world-wide meetings trying to stem the increase in global heating, yet each year it has become worse, even during La Nina years. Now we have El Nino conditions, and the outlook is grim.
Already with 70 percent of wildlife gone, due to forest fires, abnormal and unusual weather conditions, tell me: how long will the God/Creator tolerate such conditions in his precious and holy handiwork?
Then there is the Rapture thing: a grand LIE. Look at verse 39 of that famous chapter. Question: Who were taken away in the Flood? Noah remained, and his family, but the sinners all drowned. The same will happen when Jesus returns: The believers remain on earth: the sinners are doomed and banned forever.
What does this mean for 2024 and beyond, the ‘years of living dangerously?’ Hebrew 10: 31, tells me that it is “dreadful to fall into the hands of the living God”. Thanks to Bonhoeffer I too see creation as God’s, as identifiable to him. That’s why our sins against creation are bouncing back to us. Creation/God is taking revenge, true to God’s own words: Vengeance is mine, Romans 12: 19 among other texts, because our sins are and always have been creational trespasses: we now have exploited God’s very earth to the edge of extinction. God has foreseen that and built-in instruments of revenge, now being employed to our unbearable pain and death.
That is our future for 2024 and beyond. By following Karl Barth’s prescription, I come to a conclusion, shorn of hype and sinful optimism. God-talk may not be very popular today, evident in the rapid and ominous decline of ‘religious faith’ institutions. That does not mean that faith is gone. The Economist has it. Every person has a more or less defined outlook for the future, based on ‘faith’.
Now, finally after 2,000 years 2 Peter 3 can be visualized in an ever-hotter world: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”