Remembering Y2K?

I just got off the phone with a reporter from the Journal Inquirer who wanted to interview me to write an article for an upcoming issue.  According to her, I’m considered a person of local interest … go figure!  One interesting thing that I learned during our conversation was that she had read some of my Ramblings.  So that answers one question that I’ve had for a while, which was wondering whether anybody had ever actually read any of them.  Talking to her also reminded me that it had been a couple of weeks since my last post, so I decided that it was time for me to remedy that situation.

One of the questions she put to me caused me to have to pause for a while to think about my answer.  Not because the answer was hard, but because I wanted to be careful to phrase my answer in a reasonably delicate way.  She asked, “What would I say to the person who lives a good life and does good for people, but they don’t actually believe in God?  What would I say to them?”  It’s a good question, and one that is worthy of a reasonable answer.  To answer her question I started by referring to an exchange that had taken place during the recent Bill Nye (The Science Guy) & Ken Ham (The Creation Museum) Debate.

At one point Bill Nye had said that one thing that he loved about science was the “joy of discovery”.  He said that he loved the idea that there was always something new and wonderful that was waiting to be discovered, and that he didn’t think that belief in God as the Creator really allowed for that same kind of joy.  Mr. Ham’s response was to first point out that Mr. Nye believed that there was no God and that there was no such thing as life after death.  He then went on to ask what’s the point of “joy of discovery” if after you’re dead you have no knowledge or appreciation of the fact that once upon a time you actually made discoveries and enjoyed doing so?  What good is anything without a belief in God to give life an eternal perspective?

I then went on to say that I would give a similar answer to the question, “What would I say to the person who lives a good life and does good for people, but they don’t actually believe in God?  What’s the point of living a good life and doing good for others if after you die you have no knowledge or appreciation of the fact that once upon a time you actually lived a good life and did good things … and after the people for whom you did good things died they would have no remembrance of those good things either.  People who don’t believe in God are living in an extremely short-sighted way … for they have no care for what might be just around the corner.

In a way it sort of reminds me of Y2K!  You remember Y2K don’t you? Y2K involved a world-wide fear that computers around the world would all potentially crash and stop working completely.  The rationale was that since the software programs that ran them were all based on a calendar with years that were in the 1900’s, they were not prepared to handle the year 2000.  The fear was that the entire world-wide banking system would come to a screeching halt, and that air traffic controllers around the world might lose track of airplanes that were currently in flight, and credit cards would become useless since the computer systems tracking credit card sales would not work, and we wouldn’t be able to get cash from our banks because of the previously afore-mentioned world-wide banking system crash, etc., etc.

I said it sort of reminds of Y2K because looking back on it someone could ask, “What good was all that preparation?”  Estimates vary as to how much it cost to prepare for Y2K, of course, but it is conservatively estimated that over half a trillion dollars was spent world-wide to prepare computers for the arrival of the 21st Century.  Although we’ll never know now if it was actually necessary, at the time it was a risk that the world just could not afford to take.  There’s no doubt that if the fears concerning Y2K were to have come true, the resulting world-wide economic collapse would make the last five years look like a cake-walk.

So what’s my point about Y2K really?  It’s simple … it reminds me how the world can care deeply about things relating to this life, and yet choose to be blissfully unconcerned about the things relating to the next.  The possibility that the world banking system might collapse is certainly something we should get ourselves ready for, but what's going to happen to us when we die ... the answer to that question for most people can apparently wait.  Death is all around us, but we prefer to live like ostriches with our heads in the sand.

The Bible I preach from on Sundays has 1,939 pages in it; and yet you only need to read to page 4 to find the first mention of death.  In Genesis 2 God told Adam that he must must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if and when he did eat of it God said he would surely die.  As it turned out, Adam and Eve failed to pay attention to the original Y2K.  God had said, “You Two Know enough.”  God didn’t want them to know about evil, but they decided that they didn’t want to follow His counsel.  So they ate the forbidden fruit, and they and we have had more than enough intimate knowledge of evil ever since.

Fortunately, God did not leave us to stew in our proverbial evil juices!  He sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross to take away the sins of the world.  And one day, all those who have put their personal faith in Jesus will hear Him utter the final Y2K prophecy.  As we bow before Him, He will say to each of us, “You, Too, I Knew!  Enter into the joy of your Master!