One Christmas many years ago, after everyone in the house had gone to sleep, I found myself sprawled out in my rocking chair, admiring the great decorating job my wife and kids had done on the Christmas tree.
Only a few weeks earlier, I had grumbled under my breath as my sons and I spent a good hour or so searching high and low through a wet and windy Christmas tree lot trying to pick out the darn thing. Now, however, as I sat there in the quiet darkness, mesmerized by the tiny colored lights and all the shiny ornaments, all the effort seemed more than worthwhile.
So, filled with the Christmas spirit (I had also just finished listening to a bunch of my favorite Christmas carols), I sat up in my chair and reached for the TV clicker. One last flip of the channels, I told myself, and then it’s off to bed.
Just as I was about to hit the “off” button, a rather pleasant-looking couple seated confidently behind a large desk appeared on the screen. The woman, in her fifties or sixties and quite attractive, looked lovingly over at the man (who was apparently her husband) and asked, “Jack, isn’t it wonderful to be living in the final days?”
Jack, beaming from ear to ear, returned her warm smile and nodded his head for all he was worth. “Rexella,” he said, “these are very exciting times indeed!”
For reasons unknown to me (although I think it had something to do with the fact that the lady’s name was Rexella), I turned up the volume a bit.
“Jack,” said Rexella, reading from a newspaper clipping which suddenly appeared on the TV screen, “it says here that the world had more natural disasters this year than in any other year in recent memory.”
This news really excited Jack. In fact, he seemed almost giddy that it had been such a terrible year with so much suffering throughout the world.
“Rexella,” he said with conviction, “the countdown is definitely on!”
For the next ten minutes or so, Rexella presented Jack with more and more newspaper clippings (as if those were gospel instead of the words in the Bible he was holding) and Jack explained in great detail how famine, earthquakes and especially AIDS were all pieces of a very complex prophecy puzzle.
The final newspaper clipping had to do with the European Economic Community, and this sent Jack off on a harangue about a beast with ten toes and seven heads, the revival of the Holy Roman Empire, and the fact that a straight line from Israel to the North Pole goes right through Moscow.
Anyway, with only about five minutes of their broadcast time left, Rexella reluctantly interrupted her husband (who was really on a roll) and turned things over to someone named Chuck.
Chuck turned out to be a rather serious, fast-talking man with a deep announcer’s voice. He quickly explained that for only $19.95 (plus $3.00 shipping and handling), one could purchase by credit card Jack’s newest videotape, entitled “A.D. 2000 — The End?”
With that little bit of business concluded, Jack and Rexella returned to the screen for a couple of enthusiastic concluding thoughts. For two people apparently convinced that the world was about to end, they sure seemed to be in good spirits, I thought to myself as I clicked off the television.
With the TV set off and the only light in the house once again belonging to the Christmas tree, I sat back in my chair and decided to give Jack and Rexella the benefit of the doubt. They were right. In many ways, it had been a terrible, terrible year. But as it is for most people, the Christmas season has always been a time of hope for me. I’m reminded that sins can be forgiven; that people (when they really want to) can treat each other with kindness, charity, and tolerance; that family and friends can never be valued enough; and that every life matters and all of us can make a difference for the better if we simply roll up our sleeves and make the effort.
Maybe Jack and Rexella are ready to throw in the towel and eagerly await the end, but something tells me that God doesn’t have the slightest intention of letting any of us get off that easy.