Messiahs, saints & End Times

I have an occasional spell that takes hold of me where I sit down and just go down a Tik Tok spiral. I open up Tik Tok and just spend about a good hour watching videos on the app. I like them because they are raw, real, quirky, goofy, and sexy–all of it.

With the big hot air balloon of Trump deflating and the war in Ukraine winding down, it has surprised me to find a rise in videos on Tik Tok warning people of the End Times being fast ahead–as in days or weeks. Very passionate people who claim they can’t get much sleep because of the urgency they feel right to their bones. I thought one man I listened to was going to bust a vein in his head before the video ended. He was so upset by the idea that people were just not “getting it” or “seeing it” like he was. There are lots of claims people focus on: the drying up of rivers around the world (especially the Euphrates River spoken about in the Bible), a gathering of world religious leaders on Mt. Siani creating their own set of “10 Commandments” with the aim to treat the environment better (heaven forbid we commit to take care of the Earth because, one man said, “this surely proves it is end times”), transitioning governments some have used to say there are no one is left in power as an exaggerated scare tactic, Trump as the second coming of Jesus figure, floods, etc.

I’m going to use that dreaded phrase now….”back in my day”…there was the Cold War and Y2K and the rise of the European Union–all of these three, we were told, meant that Jesus was imminent. People built shelters and purchased end of days kits. I dressed in a tux at night expecting Christ to pick me up any time. This is how sure I was. I wanted to be ready. And here we still are. Many of the preachers who preached those dire warnings have passed on or have also been charged with money fraud and scams. Even so, there is a scripture where it says that people will say ‘We have heard these warnings before and so will ignore signs’. So, even with me saying that, is almost another prophecy in itself. It is claimed that 80% of Biblical Prophecy is fulfilled already and the rest is just end-time stuff. You just never know but I always say, you should your life like Jesus is coming any day and you have nothing to decipher or worry about. The fact is these things could all be symbolic or literal on end times, who knows. We are to live in the Spirit, regardless.

One most interesting insight happened for me, however, when I looked into the latest hyped-up claim on Tik Tok. This is a new “Messiah” selected in Israel that apparently does miracles of some sort and is bringing some of the tribes together. Tik Tok’ers unfamiliar with Judaism are in end-time hysteria that the Jewish people are calling this person the next Messiah. At first, it did garner my interest when I saw the videos but upon research, I discovered that there have been claims of Messiahs throughout the centuries and even during the time of Jesus there were still people claiming to be Messiahs. The Messiah is a man who can perform miracles and bring peace. So it is not like the designation of a Messiah is only given to someone who walks in off a cloud or is born of a virgin. Or even someone that is destined to save the world in Jewish ideas of that role. This is something I didn’t know and I think a lot of ignorant fundamentalist Christians don’t know. They are jumping to conclusions that the Jewish people would see this Messiah as someone like we would see a Jesus figure.

This got me thinking about where we came with this concept of Saints from then too. Really a Messiah is like our version of a Catholic Saint–someone who works miracles and brings peace. Then in the Protestant sense, and where the division lies, we were all deemed Saints by Paul because we were all stated as having the same power to do as much or more as Christ did by Christ Himself. Fascinating! Controversial and the idea of Saint got muddied and even more so this idea of Messiah to Saint. For whatever reason, if we are indeed endowed with the power of sainthood to perform miracles and bringing peace to the nations, more than half of us or more are not actualizing those powers it appears. We live under self-imposed limitations and divisions. How God must be grieved, I can barely think of it. We need more forgiveness than we could ask for.

In conclusion, I don’t think we are in the end times. I think these people on Tik Tok are in a space where they don’t have a big thing to fear or hate, so they are once again reaching for something to create a target. I honestly don’t know how these fundamentalists live under so much stress of either hating the world or seeing hell on the doorstep and working more to bring fear and hate than peace and love. I used to be one and I’m glad I left it behind. It makes them anxious to not have anything in the news to point at and blame so the silence means that it is time to take responsibility for their lives and make good of it. 3 fingers pointed back at me but I have different reasons why I need to improve. It isn’t hiding behind the end-time train though. We have all been sinners, and saints, and we have felt heaven and the end of days right here in this time. The question is now that we have all experienced these things in our lifetimes, what we will do with the time given to us? The choice is ours. The Bible and the stories within were written thousands of years ago. Our story is being written now and God speaks to us now. The great thing is we can write our own ending. We can write our own story and make our life come out however we want it to be — sure, some things we can’t control but we can control how we respond. We are the authors of our lives. How will your story unfold? I hope it has a happy ending. Hopefully one without a lake of fire or anything like that. I recommend rainbows, angels, choirs, and clouds. That sounds a bit better 🙂