When the World Will End

Last year, the end of the world was much in the news as Harold Camping predicted May 21 as the day of Doom. He was wrong.

Now there is much talk about the Mayan calendar and the speculation that because it only runs through December 21, 2012, the end is near.

I expect to wake up on December 22, 2012, as I did on May 22, 2011, with the world still going on pretty much as it has.

I am confident about this because I am an Episcopalian. And as an Episcopalian I know when the world is going to end. It is really quite simple and, because I care, I am going to let the world know so everyone can plan ahead.

There is an elaborate set of rules for determining the date of Easter each year. Helpfully, there are Tables for Finding Holy Days in our Book of Common Prayer beginning on page 880. The Prayer Book even saves us the trouble of applying those rules by listing future Easter dates in the following pages.

And here it is . . .

The Book of Common Prayer has dates for Easter through 2089, but no further. Therefore, I predict the end of the world will come on or after April 3, 2089.

Remember, you heard it here first.


Actually, anyone wondering about the end of the world would do well to consider the following:

Jesus said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." (Matthew 24:36)

And Paul wrote, "For he says, 'At the acceptable time I have listened to you, and helped you on the day of salvation.' Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Corinthians 6:2)

See also: C. S. Lewis and the World's Last Night

C. S. Lewis and the World's Last Night

In light of the recent mistaken prediction of the world's end, I commend C. S. Lewis' essay, The World's Last Night. Here is an excerpt from the last paragraph of that essay:

"I do not find that pictures of physical catastrophe – that sign in the clouds, those heavens rolled up like a scroll – help one so much as the naked idea of Judgment. We cannot always be excited. We can, perhaps, train ourselves even now to ask more and more often how the thing we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at the each moment will look when the irresistible light streams in upon it; that light which is so different from the light of this world – and yet, even now, we know just enough to take it into account."