Seventh Grade Beat Up Day and The End of the World

When I was twelve, nothing scared me more than Seventh Grade Beat Up Day. On the first day of Junior High, every seventh grade boy got at least a slug on the arm from older boys whom puberty had transformed into monsters. I heard apocryphal tales of seventh graders beaten to a pulp by gargantuan fourteen year olds. My dread grew as time dragged me toward adolescence and this violent rite of passage.

Until Hal Lindsey told me the world was going to end first.

I read Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth when I was in sixth grade. It was the only book that impacted me as much as The Lord of the Rings, because the stories were similar. Lindsey told me that “signs” of the end times were everywhere. The evil numbers “666” were showing up in computer codes and the names of powerful leaders. Soon, the Antichrist would show up and seduce the world into his tyrannical designs. Of course, God and the angels would show up in the nick o’ time and kick his Satanic ass, but I wouldn’t be around for that part. The “rapture” would occur first and I’d get sucked up into heaven, far away from tribulations and the Devil’s minions. Lindsey even predicted the year of the rapture - 1982.

I was supposed to enter seventh grade in 1982. If the rapture occurred any time before Labor Day, I would escape Seventh Grade Beat Up Day. I had two chances in three of being with Jesus instead of fleeing for my life between classes. I loved Hal Lindsey.

Until I got home from the first day of seventh grade with a bruise the size of a baseball on my right arm.

An offensive lineman named Sean nabbed me as I was coming out of the bathroom. He delivered a punch that felt like sledgehammer to my right shoulder. It scared me more than it hurt, because I thought Sean was just warming up before he pummeled me to death. But he just walked away while a group of his friends laughed and taunted me.

Then something unexpected happened - I got pissed off. Once I accepted the fact that Jesus wasn’t going to beam me up on the spot, I realized that Seventh Grade Beat Up Day was stupid and wrong. What had I done wrong except pass sixth grade? What gave these jerks the right to pick on younger kids? So when Sean’s friends advanced to administer their own blows, I dropped my books and raised my fists.

“Come on, punks!” I shouted. I’m pretty sure my voice cracked.

They reared back in surprise. They laughed nervously and walked away. I guess they weren’t used to resistance. That little victory more than made up for the bruise on my shoulder. I realized that I wasn’t helpless and I didn’t have to run away from problems.

When Jesus didn’t yank me into the sky before Seventh Grade Beat Up Day, I learned something. Escapist fantasies turned into anger and action. That should be our response to the tragedy and disaster that currently ravages the lands where Jesus and the prophets laid the foundation of our faith. It’s a waste of time trying to figure out if the conflict between Israel and Lebanon signifies “the end times.” Worse than that, it’s cowardice. Some evangelicals treat the apocalypse like I did The Lord of the Rings when I was 12 - an exciting tale of good trouncing evil as a prelude to paradise. It’s sensationalist distraction from the horrors of the world that they treat as “signs.” And, just like me on Seventh Grade Beat Up Day, they’re counting on Jesus to come back so the suffering in the Middle East is no longer their problem.

Christians should forget about the end of the world. We need to throw away the Left Behind novels and get to work. Forget about the Antichrist, the tribulation, the rapture and how many instances of “666” you can decode in the newspaper. We have work to do. People need our help. Our government needs to know that followers of Jesus Christ abhor violence and insist on peaceful solutions whenever possible. When we get lost in speculation about the end of time, it’s little more than escapism and distraction from our duties.

But, lest I sound condescending, I assure you that I can be just as lazy. I may not be reading LaHaye and Jenkins, but I still get distracted. I spend a lot of time entertaining myself with things more easy to digest than the complex horrors happening in the Middle East. It’s ugly stuff and I’d rather not look. But I have to, because I’m a Christian. I follow the Prince of Peace and it’s my job to do what I can about the atrocities of the world. Just because I’m searching the Internet for clues about the next season of Lost instead of the mark of the Beast doesn’t make me a better person. If the Devil has a plan, it’s probably to lull us to sleep while evil runs amok in far away places.

I still believe that Jesus will return one day and change everything. But I’ve studied enough eschatology to know that I have no clue how and when it’s going to happen. The truth is I don’t care anymore. I know that God will reconcile all creation one day, but the time and fashion is His business. There’s suffering that needs to be addressed in the mean time, all of it much worse than Seventh Grade Beat Up Day.