Hello from the other side

With all the ‘end time’ chatter at the moment (TIME magazine speaks of ‘World War ISIS’), I have somewhat lost track of all the people who have been working (positively) in this space. It was once sufficient for an eschatologist (from the Greek eskhatos meaning ‘last’) to simply follow the oeuvre of Peter Gabriel (obviously, with a name like that) — “turn up the signal and wipe out the noise” was his salient advice. But now the clarion call for closure has entered the mainstream.

Adele Adkins seems to be a nice person. She certainly has a powerful and alluring voice (with a tonal purity that is clear of those warbling vibrato arpeggios that are endemic to the North American product), and evidently she’s a great hit with the masses. The first single from her new album 25 is ostensibly a ballad about catching up with an ex-lover who, going by the video clip, was prone to talking a lot.

Songs about the relationships between human lovers often have a double entendre in the relationship between these individual singer/songwriters and their God. Indeed, in Christian doctrine, the relationship between two human lovers is intended to mirror our relationship as individuals with God, albeit with ‘Christ’ acting as an ‘intercessor’, the ‘telephone network’ to use imagery that Adele employs in her video clip. Her song reminds me of another in which Robert Smith of The Cure mumbles “Hello?” “Is there anyone there?” “Hello?” and bemoans that it is “much too late — (I’m sorry you have the wrong…) yeah sorry, wrong number”.

You will often hear of Christians praying to Jesus instead of simply going straight to the source. Indeed Catholics and Muslims share an understanding of a further level of intercession brokered by Mary (Jesus’ mum), and in Mary is a strong focus of real ecumenical hope.

It was first suggested within the Jewish framework of ‘linear time’ that history is not endlessly repeating itself, but is moving inexorably towards completion. Unlike the stereotype of people prancing around in white suits like John Lennon when he imagined he was Jesus, the reality of a completed world is a much more colourful and attractive proposition, which we will explore, all in good time. Those who have had such visions of Heaven have naturally wanted the story to reach its conclusion sooner than perhaps its architect ordained, and have done whatever they can to ‘Bring it on’.

When Adele says “Hello from the other side” what does she mean? The other side of the road? Her plea is for the end to come. She can “at least say that I’ve tried”, that “she has called a thousand times”, and that she is “sorry for all she has done (wrong)”. As she looks heavenward, “it’s no secret that both of us are running out of time”.

Catholics and Muslims are especially anxious about the perceived fact that God is slowly bumping them off over the course of seventy or so years. God’s ultimate plan is for us to be free, free indeed from our last enemy, death itself. They worry about all the wrong things they have done to deserve their death, when in fact it is God who is responsible for having made us the way we are. Indeed, at the completion, when “they that dwell in the shadow of death will see a great light”, it will be God who takes away the ‘sin’ of the world, by simply taking away the mortality that was imposed on us. The symbolism of baptism is to be washed clean, made as white as wool. Jesus famously described eternal life as “the pearl of great price”. Which of us would not give away everything we own to have life everlasting?

We live in an age that is obsessed with materialism. To glimpse what Heaven will be like, recall that time is money, and that with unlimited time comes unlimited wealth.