The end is near!

Since the theme of readings and teachings every time we celebrate Christmas, and Advent before it, is often to prepare for the Second Coming while commemorating the First Coming of Jesus, the season constantly has a way of bringing the end of the world to mind (though it must be said that I nonetheless love Christmastide with all my heart). The end the Book of Revelation describes as being ushered in by catastrophe, disaster, and destruction everywhere; where events—a confluence of war, famine, calamities—of cataclysmic proportions pave the way for the day of reckoning, when each sinner faces Him, the ultimate judge, mighty and just.

Hollywood has made stellar contributions in depicting this apocalyptic end, keeping our imaginations alive, our fears real and constant, and while making good business—with many a doomsday film portraying the end of days raking in so much at the box office. One wonders where this fixation for Armageddon comes from, that even the most religiously apathetic societies continue to engage the subject matter with so much speculation and fascination. But Armageddon (the Bruce Willis-starrer featuring a giant asteroid on course for a head-on collision with earth) is too far from fact, it is too much of fiction (most of the film’s highlights are not supported by science). Besides, I don’t think a bunch of Americans can stop a biblical prophecy, so feared, so celebrated for thousands of years, from coming into fruition—if it’s written, then it must come to pass.

But what if the end of days has nothing to do with giant space asteroids hitting the earth or Mayan prophecies setting our common expiration a year from now (2012)? What if the prophetic books of the Bible—Daniel, Ezekiel, the Revelation—point to facts, to geopolitics and the threat of terrorism shaping current events as the main stage for the world’s last hurrah?

Joel Rosenberg is an author on the subject who has captured both my interest and imagination. He has weaved together his background in Middle Eastern politics (he served as a political communications consultant to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and his profound and scholarly knowledge and grasp of biblical prophecy (born to a family with Orthodox Jewish roots, he is an evangelical Christian) to create a fictionalized account, littered with real world events and personalities, of what the end times should be like. And he describes the Last Days to be much like our world today.

In his first book (The Last Jihad), he wrote of a kamikaze-hijacked plane attack on an American city, close to a year before September 11. Months before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he wrote on his second book (The Last Days) of a US-led war with Saddam Hussein and the death of Yasser Arafat (eight months before it happened). This seemingly prophetic work of fiction has gained for him the notoriety of being a modern-day Nostradamus.

He doesn’t like the label and insists he’s no prophet—that he just happens to know a lot about global politics and religion, its interdependence and irrefutable correlation, on top of having a relatively creative mind and adequate writing skills to boot.

I’ve skipped his first two books (will read them when I’ve more time), and went straight to reading The Ezekiel Option (the third in his ‘Last Jihad’ series), wanting to know what’s going to happen next, before events described in the book make it to actual news headlines. And true enough, weeks after reading The Ezekiel Option and raving about it to friends interested in either global politics or biblical prophecy (those in the area of Eschatology or the apocalyptic scriptures), or both, most of what I’ve read found its way to Fox News and CNN. Truly riveting.

But Rosenberg doesn’t scrimp on vivid descriptions of an apocalyptic firestorm and interventions from God, as the Book of Ezekiel suggests, and his constant references to typical evangelical Christian remarks are sure to make the uninitiated cringe, I won’t be surprised either if some would even think it pathetic, but it still makes for a fascinating read if the topic is of interest to you. And who wouldn’t be interested in the last days, especially when we seem to be living it?

But whatever the case may be, whether Rosenberg just got lucky and guessed it right, or our days are truly numbered, the best recourse is to be ready. And this is what we learn from Christmas each time. Are our hearts ready for Him when He returns, or will we send Him away, like they did before, because there isn’t room inside?

Merry CHRISTmas, folks, and a prosperous, bountiful, healthy, and peaceful 2011! 

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This Saturday on The Bottomline with Boy Abunda: The Best of Bottomline 2010 yearend special is a look back at the most explosive revelations, controversial remarks, difficult questions, and violent reactions from our guests, Boy, and the bottomliners throughout the show’s first year.

Watch it after Banana Split on ABS-CBN. Replay telecast on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Sunday, 1:30 pm. 

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