Originally published 2/14/19
While the irreverent puppets from Avenue Q sang "The internet is really really great...for porn!", Dr. Don Wilton might counter that it was actually invented so that we can all see the coming of Christ.
There are many, many, many disputations about when and where (and of course, if) Christ will come again. Evangelical Christians - who often make very literal interpretations of the Bible - stipulate that Jesus will come again, down from the sky: Jesus has gone away to heaven, and some day, just as he went, he will return. Acts 1:11. Two guys dressed in white told this to a group of dumbfounded apostles as they stood on Mount Olive (where we'll go later) and watched Jesus ascend into the sky. That sounds like a really nice, calm event, Jesus returning to Mount Olive. That's why so many people are buried there - Jews, Christians and Muslims - so that they'll be the first to be resurrected.
But other accounts in the Bible aren't as peaceful. Especially the tale of horrors (what was John tripping on?) in the book of Revelation. That's what we talked about as we stood on top of Megiddo, a mountain of crushed civilizations that sits at the corner of a major trade route, overlooking the Valley of Armageddon.
Cue Beethoven's Fifth. dun dun dun dunnnnnn. dun dun dun duuuunnnnnnnnn.
Except for it didn't look as frightening as one might think the valley where wars have actually taken place and where it is prophesied that the final battle to end all battles will take place.
The clouds of the day did lend some ominousness to the day, the valley of Armageddon was a rather peaceful and fertile agricultural valley.
Megiddo is an ancient city in the north of Israel that sits on top of a particular type of hill, called a Tel. There are about 200 Tels in Israel. A Tel is an archaeological mound made up of layers of ancient civilizations. Archaeologists estimate that as many as 26 civilizations were buried beneath our feet. Megiddo is mentioned 12 times in the Bible, and was one of the royal cities of the Canaanites, as well as an important defense post during King Solomon's reign, as it stood at the intersection of trade routes that linked Egypt to Asia Minor. Excavations reveal stables that would have held up to 450 horses and 150 chariots and a very sophisticated and civilized society, with gates, streets, steps, and a water system. These civilizations dated from 7000-586 BC. That's from before Jesus was born.
An important indicator of the existence of a civilization is the discovery of a water source. There is no indication of a significant water source near Megiddo, so water was brought from a well found on the other side of a neighboring hill. We walked down to the well, 115 feet into the ground, and 330 feet through a small shaft bored through rock.
Left: Ancient civilizations didn't build the convenient boardwalk, nor did a landscaping company install safety lights. But they did, somehow, tunnel 330 feet through stone to a water source.
Life then, in 970 BC, when Solomon was king and he kept his horses at Megiddo, couldn't have been easy. Every day was an act of moving life forward, surviving, just one more day. Women had to walk to this well, down 100 feet into the ground, and through the ground for 330 feet, 10 to 12 times a day.
I complained when I had to take Jackson outside - down one flight of stairs and across the one-way street to an open field - 8 to 10 times a day to pee.
Yet they were able to stable hundreds of horses, build large temples with complex gate mechanisms and sustain a fairly complex daily life, all the while looking out for the next intruder.
I can barely manage the development of a software platform that I use to sustain my Amazon Prime habit.
So as we sat on top of 26 civilizations, Dr. Wilton preached about the eschaton again, which was appropriate, as we were looking out onto the place where it is thought that the last and final battle will take place.
"And they gathered all the armies of the world near a place called, in Hebrew, Armageddon - the Mountain of Megiddo." Revelation 16:16
Revelation is a story to weird to recount but let's just say it involves beasts, malignant sores, lakes of blood and fire, a dragon-riding harlot, an earthquake and a hailstorm. It ends with the one named Faithful and True riding in on a white horse, on whose robe was written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I'm gonna say that's Jesus. He slays all the bad guys in one fell swoop and throws Satan into a bottomless pit where he will remain for 1,000 years.
So that's a little different prophecy of the resurrection of Christ than the gentle return that the apostles understood from the guys in white on Mount Olive.
As usual, there are a couple of places that one could interpret to be the location of Christ's return, but most who believe that he will physically return would probably agree that he's coming back to Israel, somewhere.
That's great if you're in Israel, but what about those of us who don't live there? How do we see Jesus' return? Dr. Wilton suggested that people everywhere will see it because of cell phones, Facebook live, the Internet...maybe that's why the Internet was invented, he suggested. And not, as many (in addition to the Avenue Q song writers) have suggested, for porn. Dr. Wilton did not mention porn, to be clear, but it is a popular theory that porn indeed fueled the development of the Internet.
The Internet is a convenience of the 21st Century that I'm sure no one prophesied. I remember being reluctant to use email in 1999, reasoning that voice mail was fine enough, thank you. And dial up modem was painfully slow. Now, I have a business and a hobby that are dependent upon the World Wide Web, and a lifestyle that is dependent upon a phone, which is directly connected to the Internet. And we are always looking at our phones, which really is looking at the Internet, or whichever app our friends are currently using to communicate across the Internet.
It is a likely scenario, if you think about it, that if Jesus descends from the clouds, whether on a horse or quietly on top of Mount Olive, we might just see it on the Internet first.
Technology aside, I like to think that Jesus is already here, among us, in the hearts and minds of those of us who are aware, and standing near those who aren't.
Me and mom on top of 26 civilizations. Armageddon is in the background. We look oddly happy about it.
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