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2012: Good News from the End Times

by Tom Jones 
In last Sunday's Gospel from Luke (ch. 21:25-28), we heard Jesus tell his disciples:

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Hollywood loves this story line. The movie 2012, depicting in spectacular fashion the end of the world as we know it, is sweeping theaters around the world. Based not on Christian scripture but loosely tethered to an amalgam of internet rumors about the pending end of the ancient Mayan calendar, 2012 depicts a world beset by ominous warnings: solar storms, rare planetary alignments, earthquakes, Earth’s overheating core, and outbursts of volcanic activity.

Scientists secretly warn global leaders, but the public knows nothing of the impending crisis, until the world comes unhinged in a wave of computer-generated catastrophes: quakes spill southern California into the Pacific, Yellowstone detonates in a super-volcanic mushroom cloud, tremors topple the Washington Monument, tsunamis rise from the oceans … you get the idea. 

On its way to a comet encounter in 2014, the European Space Agency Rosetta spacecraft imaged our home world on Nov. 12, 2009. I'm betting we'll still be here in 2012 to receive Rosetta's findings. (ESA)

The movie’s success demonstrates how many of us are drawn to plot-lines detailing what form the “end of days” might take. Why? Because we’re human. We want to know where we’ve come from, why we are here today, and where this life of ours is headed. In 2012, we watch in graphic, photo-realistic detail how billions might meet their end; we can contemplate our own mortality on a grand scale. Our deaths will probably be a lot less dramatic, but for all of us, death is unavoidable. 2012 asks each of us how we would react to the certain knowledge that our life will soon be over. The trick is that each of us knows that when the end credits roll, we will walk outside, alive and intact. Life does go on.

And for Earth’s inhabitants, it should roll on for quite some time, much longer than the three years Hollywood gives us. I looked hard at 2012, but couldn’t find a shred of scientific basis for anything in the movie. No rogue planets are headed our way. Neutrinos can’t suddenly mutate and cook the Earth’s interior. And mammoth tsunamis cannot crest the heights of the Himalaya. (See NASA’s take on 2012 at http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html).

Planetary scientists know that disasters from within and without can certainly affect our civilization. Asteroids and comet impacts can cause mass extinctions. Huge volcanic eruptions can spread ash across a continent and alter the climate. Destructive earthquakes and tsunamis are part of living on this dynamic world of ours. But a world-ending catastrophe is, happily, still about five billion years in our future. The aging Sun will swell into a red giant star, with its outer layers reaching nearly to the orbit of Mars, toasting Earth to a cinder. Before that happens, I hope, we’ll all have packed our rockets and left town. 

As a scientist, I don’t worry much about the world winking out. Searching for the nearby asteroids will give us enough warning to prevent most cosmic impacts, and Yellowstone caldera probably won’t blow for another few hundred thousand years. But long before then, we’ll each confront our own mortality.

Christians try to live each day as if it could be our last. Knowing neither the day nor the hour, each of us strives to be spiritually ready when called to the next life. If we follow Christ’s example, we will survive any passing terrors and be welcomed by Him into eternity.

In 2012, people struggle on their own against a world turned upside down. Survival is a matter of luck, and only a few can hope for a life after the “end times.” The Earth they inherit is a wasteland, devoid of promise. By contrast, Christians know they need not enter the next life alone.

See 2012, if you choose, for pure entertainment. Then leave light-hearted, for we recognize, as the film does not, that our end will be just the beginning of new life. As the gospel of Luke concludes:

“And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory…when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

Hollywood could never dream up a better ending.

Tom Jones is a planetary scientist, author, speaker, and veteran NASA astronaut. Before and after 2012, his website is www.AstronautTomJones.com.

 

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)