When you are warned that a powerful hurricane is just hours away, you react. It seems that most Floridians took heed and wisely moved to where they would be safe. This in complete contrast to the good folk of Ormskirk.
We were warned, of course. By the BBC no less: “Hurricane force winds, in the next hour.”
At the same time the residents of Chichester, a civilised town if ever there was one, were informed that winds of 16,717 miles per hour were about to blast it off the face of the planet – along with overnight temperatures of 404°C. Not a place to go for your holidays.
For the record, this BBC weather forecast proved incorrect; instead, just a normal autumn day with the bonus of a splendid display of the Northern Lights. I assume it was the weather’s way of saying sorry.
No-one, of course, took the outlandish forecasts seriously. It was obvious that something had gone terribly wrong with the BBC app. The issue was with “some of the weather data from our forecast provider, which is generating incorrect numbers and text on our BBC Weather app and website,” the BBC said in a statement.
As it happens, weather forecasting has become reasonably accurate in recent years, one of the few areas in which we can with some measure of confidence predict the future.
But as human beings we long for some certainty, aware that in reality we have little idea what awaits us around the next bend. There seems a deep-rooted instinct for us to know what is about to happen. Hence horoscopes, fortune tellers and the like.
In this, Christians sadly can be easily led astray by this longing to know the future.
This Sunday I have been invited by a local church to launch their new sermon series on the book of Revelation, the final book in the Bible and for many, the most perplexing.
The problem is that this peculiar book, unlike any other except Daniel in the Old Testament and a few chapters in the gospels (Matthew 24&25, Mark 13 and Luke 21) has a particular genre which flourished in the time between the Old and New Testaments, known as apocalyptic.
This style has particular conventions and use of language, familiar to Jesus and his first followers – but totally alien to us.
However, over the centuries this enigmatic book has been used, plundered even, by Christians, to discern future events – the return of Christ in glory, of course but more to the point the lead up to his coming.
Even though, somewhat surprisingly Jesus informs us: “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Mark 13:32)
Moreover, as John begins his letter, he explains that “the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.” (Revelation 1:1). His aim is to encourage them to stand firm despite overwhelming odds by revealing the implications of Jesus’ resurrection victory.
Even so, our human instinct to know the future has led Christians to mine hidden meanings and forecasts from this strange book: strange, that is, to us but not to the original readers who were accustomed to how apocalyptic writings worked.
Sadly, in my early days as a Christian, our vicar led us up a blind alley; he was convinced that the return of Jesus was imminent from the way the Common Market was evolving.
The Common Market, as the EU was then called, in the book of Revelation, written two millennia earlier!! Well yes, he taught. There we read of “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” (Revelation 12:1).
To cut a very long exegesis short, in 1972 the Common Market was about to expand to twelve nations, including the UK. All this was neatly fitting into our vicar’s forecast, of a crown of 12 stars.
Except on 25 September the people of Norway voted not to join, and the Twelve abruptly became Eleven, wrecking our vicar’s forecast.
The reality is that we live in an insecure world; we don’t know what is about to happen, what lurks around the corner. Our only security can be found in God’s faithfulness and steadfast love which are realised in his promises, which – as the apostle Paul recounts – find their YES in Jesus.
“God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete: (2 Corinthians 1:20)
Very simply a Christian is someone who has resolved to live their life on the basis that God keeps his promises. On that basis, who needs fortune tellers or apps that go wrong? His promises are more than sufficient; they are all that we need.
As the theologian John Piper observes: “The key that unlocks the treasure chest of God’s peace is faith in the promises of God.”
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