I was riding the New York Subway a few months before Y2K.
For some reason or another, there was a big fear that Y2K signaled the end of the world, even though it was only a computer bug affecting how computers processed dates.
A middle-aged West Indian male gets on the train. He was wearing one of those cheap suits that you could get 5 for $99 in any Flatbush Avenue men’s store. His hair was beady and unkempt. He had a huge Bible, a load of tracts, and one of those smiles plastered on his face like he was a victim of the Joker’s nerve gas.
We all know what’s coming next.
The gentleman started to preach the gospel in his loud, raspy, Caribbean voice. He exclusively talked about Jesus coming back. He started jumping up and down with complete certainty.
I don’t know whether it was because of my mental state or his absolute certainty, but I believed him.
It scared the shit out of me.
You see, I knew that Jesus coming back meant that life was over. I had dreams I wanted to live. I heard in Church that when we got to heaven, all we were going to do was stand in front of the throne and praise God for eternity - and that’s it. I wanted to get laid. I wanted to travel. I wanted to play guitar.
I wasn’t ready.
After Y2K was over without any real issues, I saw the same gentleman preaching again - he didn’t have the same zeal as before.
If you live long enough, you will always see periods of people preaching that Jesus is coming back. Old time evangelist and preacher Harold Camping wrote a book called 1994? that goes into incredible detail proving that Jesus was coming back on September 4th or 6th, 1994. His book was filled with tons of erroneous beliefs about how old the Earth is. Most end-timers (Rapturians?) believe the Earth is, at the most, 4000 years old.
When that date came and went, he said that Christ was coming back on May 21, 2011. He died a few years after that at 92 years old. Before he died, he wrote an article saying that it was impossible to predict Christ's return.
Why do people want Jesus to come back?
None of the reasons are because they want to go to heaven. If they make it there - great! That's not the primary reason.
Many people long for the drama. They want the idea of the Rapture. For those of you who don't know - The Rapture is a popular image in end-times philosophy.
Before God pours out his wrath and turns the Earth into a living hell, He will ‘snatch’ people off of the planet - literally. The people left behind will look around and see piles of random clothes on the ground.
Cars will crash and dishes will break because the people who were there will not be there anymore. True believers will go to the bathroom, close the door, take a dump, and open the door to the pearly gates.
There was this HBO show in 2014 called The Leftovers, where 2% of the world's population strangely disappeared. No religion was involved at all. The show dealt with all the personal trauma inflicted on those left behind. However, there was no world cataclysm. They were just gone, and people were left to deal with it with no explanation whatsoever.
Long before I started my deconstruction of Christianity, I had to deal with the trauma of this idea. The feeling that you may never be good enough. The ultimate rejection.
Now that I’m not in it, I realize that tons of people are suffering from massive anxiety, fear, and self-loathing when thinking about these end-time events. But I digress.
It never occurs to these end-time believers that they don’t want to see the outcomes of a global traumatic act such as 'half of the population mysteriously disappearing'. They couldn't even deal with Covid!
The ironic thing is that they all swear that Jesus is going to take them. Even though they surround themselves with the things that any reasonable superior being would hate.
Picture bumping music from acme predators like R. Kelly and then being taken to be with the Lord. How about fucking your best friend's wife and then getting raptured? Yeah, the expectation doesn't make sense to me either.
They want the ultimate selfish act. They want to experience heaven, the glory of God, and the protection of angels while everyone else they love is left to suffer miserably like vermin on Earth.
“Oh well, I tried to tell you! Praise God, praise God, praise him!”
Some yahoos want the race war. They're stockpiling weapons like they're on The Walking Dead. They want to follow whoever they believe to be the next world leader so they can go ham and wipe the inferior non-believers out. They have to use the weapons they have been saving and all the paramilitary skills they have been devoting themselves to, right?
Most people who want Christ's return just want to be right.
Period.
Some people will go to the ends of the Earth just to prove that they were right all along. Whenever you hear these Christians talk, they always sound like Christ coming back will be the ultimate "Screw you, I told you so!"
They want justification for giving up all the shit they crave. They've been waiting for a long time, holding back all of their carnality and lust. They want a long vacation from that. These people need to believe in a God or religion to be a good person. They need someone looking over their shoulder all the time, but they also want that omnipotent being's forgiveness.
The funny thing about all of this? It's the presupposition that wanting Christ's return makes someone a super godly person. In truth, it just makes them selfish assholes. Don't feel guilty if you don't care.
