By Mike Poteet

Are you worried about 2012? Some people say that the ancient Mayans thought you should be! In 2006, Daniel Pinchbeck's popular book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl introduced many readers to the Mayan calendar's "Long Count," the system by which Mayans marked millennia-long cycles of time. According to Pinchbeck's book—and several books written by others that followed—December 21, 2012 marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle. These authors disagree about what humankind should expect when the day arrives, but all agree that we should expect something big.

Now, with the premiere of director Roland Emmerich's big-budget film 2012 (November 13, rated PG-13), the most widespread expectation (among those who expect anything) may be that 2012 will bring the end of the world. NASA scientist David Morrison told the Los Angeles Times: "Two years ago, I got a question a week about [2012]. Now I'm getting a dozen a day. Two teenagers said they didn't want to see the end of the world so they were thinking of ending their lives . . . . I'm getting more and more questions from people who are upset and scared. Some people say their children are refusing to eat."

The film's advertising campaign is almost as epic as its subject matter. Trailers show the cataclysmic collapse of human civilization in blockbuster detail: Fire falls from the heavens, unimaginably powerful earthquakes rock the globe, a mammoth tsunami slams an aircraft carrier into the White House. Other promotions use the ominous tagline "We Were Warned" and spout the authoritative-sounding (but factually inaccurate) claim, "Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures."

The teens who confided suicidal thoughts to David Morrison are the exception, not the rule. But concerns about the end of the world often grip youth—and not always on Hollywood's far-fetched terms. For example, a seventh-grader told this week's LinC writer that she was sure of science's ability to improve the world, "if global warming doesn't kill us first." And, in many ways and for many people, the world is ending even now. A recent BBC news report on extreme drought in Kenya and other East African nations, for instance, offers sobering images of communities on the cusp of extinction. These picture of gaunt livestock and starving children are pictures of "the end of the world" more horrifying than anything Tinseltown could dream up—particularly because, would the world so choose, the suffering could be stopped.

The Bible has a lot to say about the end. Some Old Testament prophets speak of "the day of the Lord," a time when God will judge evildoers and set right what is wrong. The New Testament adds to this idea the promised return of Jesus, which will indisputably be a moment of cosmic consequences. Overall the Bible teaches that the world will someday end and that its end will be God's doing. (See 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; 15:24-26; 2 Peter 3:10-13; and Revelation 6:12-17; 21:1.)

Christians believe that these teachings about "end times" and "last things"(or eschatology) are good news! Jesus himself told his followers, "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near" (Luke 21:28). We don't know when "the day" will arrive (see Mark 13:32), but we do know that, in the end, God will no longer allow evil, death, and sin to damage God's good creation. It means God will bring all things to fulfillment in Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 1:10). And it means that today we, knowing how all will end in Christ, can and must bring worlds of suffering and poverty and hopelessness to an end.

From the November 15, 2009 issue of LinC (Living in Christ)