I once had a roommate who was really into the Doors. I think the only two books I ever saw him read were a biography of Jim Morrison and a collection of “poetry” by Morrison himself. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but he listened to the Doors a lot. Since the Doors were lame, I tuned most of it out. Although I would never publicly admit to actually liking it, there was one song that sort of stuck with me: “The End”. It’s a hard song to ignore. At 12 ½ minutes, its an epic hallucinogenic trip replete with over-wrought emoting from the dark prince himself. The lyrics themselves are an impressionist smattering of self-destruction, violence, ego, and finality as the narrator embraces his own end: “this is the end/beautiful friend/this is the end/my only friend, the end”.
While Morrison would have us believe the meaning of the song is open, it seems to me that for him, the end was simply the end. It was the finish. The point-of-no-return. It was the abyss that cannot be crossed.
For me, then and now, the end is something different. It is something new. With Bonhoeffer, I say the end is the beginning of life.
This is something that 2000 years of Christian thinking backs up. The end is not some cataclysmic decent into a nihilistic void, but flush with energy, vitality, and … life. It is the hope for the resurrection of the body, union with Christ and life eternal.
But is this end a beautiful friend?
On more than one occasion the Church has been accused of shirking the responsibility of our present historical reality and slipping into a passive waiting for this end. Why fight for justice now when you got your ticket punched for the big dance? Pop critics of the Church love pointing out all the times we have been on the wrong side of progressive social change. And guess what? They have a point. Sort of.
One of the greatest treasures of 20th century theology has been a revitalized vigor for a Christian eschatology that can embrace both the otherwordly nature of “the end” and combine it with a passion for justice in the here and now. Biblical scholar George Ladd referred to it as the “already/not yet” aspect of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom was and is present in the person and work of Jesus Christ but is waiting its ultimate consummation in the end. In this sense, “the end” includes a vital social component. Just as the kingdom Jesus proclaimed and actualized involved care for the marginalized, the righting of wrongs and a cosmic renewal of the creation, our “end” reflects that same reality only in its total fulfillment.
But my favorite contributor to this movement has been the writing of German theologian Jürgen Moltmann. According to Moltmann, “the end” can, is, and should also be realized here and now. In this present moment, we live into “the end” by practicing the reality of our “end”. In his epoch-making The Coming of God, he affirms our very existence is one in which we live in “an expectation of the future in the eschatological context of the end, and the new creation of the world.” (192)
This means the end is already present in an anticipatory form. In anticipating the end, we are called to participate in the proleptic human struggle for God’s justice. Of this he writes specifically of the apocalyptic book of Revelation. It
… was not written for "rapturists" fleeing from the world, who tell the world ‘goodbye’ and want to go to heaven; it was meant for resistance fighters, struggling against the godless powers on this earth (153)
So while the book of Revelation imaginatively depicts a revealing picture the end, it becomes an invitation for resistance against the present evil world order. For John and the early Church that was Rome. Today you have a different Rome. You might even be Rome. Just don’t let waiting for the end get in your way.
