The Mayan Calendar has run out, giving tweet-fodder to wits all over the world. Some of the better ones:
People are making apocalypse jokes like there's no tomorrow.
— Daniel Maier (@danielmaier) December 21, 2012
Sorry everyone, running a bit late.
— Mayan Apocalypse (@kabooooooooom) December 21, 2012
And perhaps my favourite...
Staring out my window at the post-apocalyptic hellscape, watching mindless creatures bent on consumption dragging themselves along.
— S. Joel Garver (@sjgarver) December 21, 2012
What's it like to live beyond the end of the world? What's it like to find yourself on the other side of judgement day unscathed?
Well Christians ought to know. We are 8th day people. Through Christ we've been taken through the history of the old world, beyond the limit of the old Adam and into a whole new calendar.
From creation, the week has proclaimed God's work in giving life (cf Exodus 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15). Day 6 is the pinnacle of His work - the Day of Man. Day 7 is the Day of Completion. On this day, the finished work of giving life is celebrated and rest is brought.
When Jesus died on the 6th day, He was summing up Man and the death he must die ("on the day you eat of it you will surely die" - Gen 2:17). On the 7th He rested in the tomb. The 8th day was the first day of a whole new week, a whole new world.
And ever since, the Lord's people have been 8th day people, celebrating His resurrection into new creation life. We don't live like old covenant people, with the day of rest and completion yet future. We have no work to do in order to arrive at the end of the world. Christ has taken us through our death and judgement - through the End and out into a New Beginning.
"Worldly" people are 6th day people. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we're dead.
"Religious" people are 7th day people. Appearing in their own person at the End and hoping to be let through.
Christians are 8th day people. We've burst through to the other side. The old calendar is gone. The old code is gone. The old man is gone. There's nothing ahead to judge or condemn us. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.