Dark Cloud Rising
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the first in his trilogy, Gandalf comes to visit Frodo in his comfortable and homey Hobbit hole. Gandalf has come because he is deeply troubled about the rise of the Dark Lord in Mordor and the threat that poses for all Middle Earth. But he does not at first reveal the weight of his concern to Frodo. They sit up late into the night talking in general about human interest news of the wider world. But in the morning after a late breakfast, sitting in the study, smoking their pipes by the warm flickering flames of the fireplace, Gandalf the Wise reveals to Frodo the nature, history, and cruel power of the ring Frodo now possesses, but which may come to possess him; and, how the malevolent shadow of the Dark Lord who forged it in the hellish fires of the Mountain of Doom, grows larger and stronger all the time.
Frodo sat silent and motionless. Fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand, like a dark cloud rising in the East and looming up to engulf him. . . . “I wish it had not happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it.
Tolkien’s Gandalf is, of course, entirely correct, and wise, in observing that all who live in dangerous times, menaced by disease, pestilence, violence, or chaos wish that “it had not happened in their time, but that is not a decision left in our hands. All that we have to decided is what to do with the time that has been given us.” One of the things I find so compelling about Tolkien’s trilogy is the utter realism with which his fantasy is written. It never dismisses or denies the depths to which the horror of real evil extends; yet, in doing so it never loses sight of the power of simple humility, kindness, and, in spite of creaturely frailty, fidelity to the good.
Tolkien was a devout Christian, a Roman Catholic, who was obviously familiar with Scriptures like 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
But mark this: There will be perilous times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy: 3 1-5A).
When Paul writes to Timothy about the “last days” he doesn’t mean the last three days, or the last week, month, year, or ten years before the world ends in a catastrophic conflagration beyond human imagination, but not beyond fear––the cosmos collapsing into that point of infinite density the physicists talk about, “the universe,” as Isaiah the Prophet imagined it, “rolled up like a scroll.” No, the last days biblically are all the days since the crucifixion of Christ that the Earth has and will revolve around the sun. The “last days” are the epoch in which we now live, and the time of whose end no one knows. Paul is simply saying that in this final era of human history there will be times or periods that are especially perilous and treacherous. There is no denial here, and no hiding behind sophisticated words like “existential threat.” Paul is concerned with that devouring evil with its rapacious appetite for souls––or whatever you want to call our human essence. The Greek term Paul uses for “perilous” or “dangerous” pictures the risk a traveler suddenly encountering a ferocious lion has of being torn to pieces and eaten. He wants Timothy to prepare his catechumenates for times of the dark shadow’s rising, and to train every pilgrim setting out on the Way what to do in those times and circumstances when it feels like everything is about to be engulfed by the dark.
Living in an “Apocalyptic” Age
Sometimes it feels like we are living in an apocalyptic age. What it feels like to live in times of crisis, chaos, danger, and peril was described by the Ipuwer Admonitions nearly 4,000 years ago. The Ipuwer Papyrus, probably written between 1850 and 1600 B.C., is a poetic description of Egypt in a time of crisis and multiple disasters. While it most certainly is not referring to the biblical exodus The Admonitions parallel the story of the plagues at several points. But it is metaphorical, apocalyptic language, describing Egypt in a time of utter chaos and ruin. People are thirsty and desperate for water to drink, but the river has turned to blood. There is famine, and even the aristocracy and their officials have nothing to eat. The fields are barren of grass, crops and trees. The stench of death is everywhere. There are so many dead bodies that they can’t be properly buried, and so are thrown into the river and streams where they are eaten by crocodiles. Travelers on the roads are robbed and murdered. Farmers carry shields to defend themselves from attack by thieves and marauders. Lawlessness is rampant and thievery blatant.
The Seven Bowels of Disaster
Of course, nothing captures the apocalyptic sense and feel like the sixteenth chapter of Revelation. Here is an excerpt and paraphrase using Peterson’s version:
I heard a shout of command from the Temple to the Seven Angels: “Begin! Pour out the seven bowls of divine disaster on earth!”
The first Angel stepped up and poured his bowl out on earth: Loathsome, stinking sores erupted on all who had taken the mark of the Beast and worshiped its image.
The second Angel poured his bowl on the sea: The sea coagulated into blood, and everything in it died.
The third Angel poured his bowl on rivers and springs: The waters turned to blood.
The fourth Angel poured his bowl on the sun: Fire blazed from the sun and scorched men and women. Burned and blistered, they cursed God’s Name. They refused to repent, refused to honor God.
The fifth Angel poured his bowl on the throne of the Beast: Its kingdom fell into sudden eclipse. Mad with pain, men and women bit and chewed their tongues, cursed the God-of-Heaven for their torment and sores, and refused to repent and change their ways.
The sixth Angel poured his bowl on the great Euphrates River: It dried up to nothing. The dry riverbed became a fine roadbed for the kings from the East.
The seventh Angel poured his bowl into the air: There were lightning flashes and shouts, thunder crashes and a colossal earthquake—a huge and devastating earthquake. The cities of the nations toppled to ruin. Hailstones weighing a ton plummeted, crushing and smashing men and women as they cursed God for the hail, the epic disaster of hail.
(Excerpted from Revelation 16 MSG)
Perilous Times
I don’t know what all the poetic language of the Bible means when it talks about eschatology––that’s the intellectually sophisticated word for the study of “last things.” I certainly believe that the world will end. Even an atheistic naturalist believes that. But I don’t know whether every man, woman, and child in the world may be disappeared by some virus more insidious and lethal than the corona virus. I do not know whether it will simply whimper slowly to an end as the human race stupidly destroys earth’s atmosphere and entire eco system until there is nothing but ash and burning dust over the entire planet; or whether a few lunatic or senile old men will incinerate the whole planet with poisonous nuclear fire; or whether an asteroid sixty miles wide will collide with the earth some Tuesday morning while you are working out your future retirement and your kid is applying for college and your best friend from middle school is writing what, if it were not for that asteroid, is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel; or whether it gets sucked into a planet eating blackhole or the whole universe collapses into an infinitesimal dot. What I do know is that it will all end, and that there will be times before it ends that feel like Mordor rising, like bowels of disease, violence, and madness have been poured out on the earth. “But mark this: There will be perilous times in the last days.”
How Then Shall We Live
There are also at least two other things that I know from Scripture as well as from my own spiritual experience and that of the Christian sages, saints, martyrs, and mystics through the centuries: The first is that the only way to live in an apocalyptic time is with unreserved, unrestricted trust in “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” Isaiah the Prophet who was brutally executed in a time of crisis wrote, “In quiet and trust is my strength.” There are certain things that are mutually exclusive. You cannot trust and be afraid at the same time. The second is that whether our time is easy and one of security or one of danger and peril and toxic madness our task remains the same––to devote ourselves to the fulfilling of God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven––to consecrate ourselves to the Way of love, of joy and peace. As with trust so with love, you cannot be loving and afraid at the same time. Love is the meaning of our existence.
And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
William Blake
Meanwhile
I am thinking about another post or two on Living in an Apocalyptic Age––perhaps one on The Politics of Jesus in an Apocalyptic Age. Meanwhile, if it is not too presumptuous of me, I would suggest reading a booklet I wrote a number of years ago, A Little Book of Sanity: Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety, Lawrence D. Hart. It is a print on demand book that can only be ordered by going to Blurb.com. But mainly remember that in these times simplicity is your friend, and the question to ask, although not easy, is utterly simple: “What am I to do with the time I have been given?”