So here we are ...

[At Chik-Fil-A, where all good Baptists will be after the end of the world.]

Well, here we are, the day after the end of the world. Now what do we do?

It's tempting to make jokes about those people who honestly believed that some incredible disaster was coming, or to rail against those who were perfectly willing to make money off the believers. If you have the spiritual gift of sarcasm like I do, it's almost required to laugh, or rant, or just shake your head in bemused pity. Instead, I'll ask a question.

What if it had all ended yesterday?

Eventually someone will be right, after all. There's no use pretending that what we see around us is eternal; the fact that we have to eat and buy new shoes and -- as I'm doing now -- have our cars worked on is proof that everything runs down. There ain't no getting around entropy, and while I don't hold with the global warming fanatics or conspiracy theorists, I know that sooner or later it will all stop.

As a Christian, I believe with all my heart that Christ will return, as is written in Scripture. I won't pretend to understand all the details of the apocalyptic writings, and I don't trust people who do claim to understand all that. I just believe that it's going to happen, and that when it does we'll understand how all the biblical descriptions were right on the money. I also believe, though, that no one knows when it will happen, and no one will know until the time comes, and that that's as it should be.

That may be today, or it may be a thousand years from now. So let's bring it a little closer to home. The world ends utterly and completely every single day for hundreds of thousands of people. Very few people expect when they wake up in the morning that they'll be dead before evening, but it happens. In fact, it'll happen to everyone eventually (unless that stuff from the last paragraph happens first). As Ray Comfort says, it's the ultimate statistic: 10 out of 10 people will die.

Take a deep breath. Enjoy it, because you're not promised another one. Have you ever stopped to think about that? Nothing is guaranteed beyond the exact moment you're in now. Nothing. Nothing.

Of course, none of us really believes that. If we did, we wouldn't spend all our time doing the things we do, and not doing the things we don't do. Think about it. When people are diagnosed with terminal diseases, what do they do? They certainly don't resolve to spend more time at work, or playing video games, or arguing about politics. No one devotes himself to reading every scrap of Lady Gaga gossip if he knows he's only got a few precious moments of life left.

Do yourself a favor. Take some time today to think about what you would do if you knew you only had one day to live. Consider what is most important in your life. Ponder what you'd want to say or do if you knew you had only one more chance to do so. And then think about where you would be five minutes after the end of your world.

This is the time of year we like to be with the people we love. We like to look back at past, and dream of the future. And, occasionally, we like to think about the ostensible "reason for the season", that baby that was born in a stable two thousand years ago. This year, think beyond the stable and look at the rest of his life. Look at his death, and then look at his resurrection. Take some time and look at why he came to die, because make no mistake, the the reason he was born was so that he could die on that cross.

And he did it for you. And for me. And for every other person who ever lived. Because every one of us is going to face the end of the world someday, and we're not ready.

But we can be.