Can we talk about the Rapture yet?

I have been wondering if we are being asked to self-isolate so we don’t notice the 4 horseman of the apocalypse trotting down the road in front of our houses. I think its time we talk about The Rapture!

I first learnt about The Rapture during the 2016 US election, when evangelicals started posting on social media about how Trump was a sign of the return of the kingdom of god. It seemed a stretch, but okay. Then here in Australia we got an evangelical Prime Minister and I started taking notice.

What is the Rapture?

Evangelical Christians tend to a literal interpretation of the bible, and believe that they will be lifted up into the air to join Jesus in a purified heaven. The rest of us will burn to death. Because. Evil.

But I don’t believe in God!

The good news is, its really only those who take a literal interpretation of the bible who believe in this apocalyptic view. It’s also a particularly patriarchal view of life. That life is a straight line and death is the end. Every other mythological narrative is based on cycles of time, on the ongoing spiral of creating a greater sense of order out of the chaos of the old and complete.

This wider mythology also absolutely lines up with chaos theory, and the way of living systems. When the existing structure has reached it’s limits (ie, we have learnt everything we can from what we currently have) it starts to break down. We move (to use the vernacular) further from equilibrium. Like a pendulum swinging more and more wildly, we reach a tipping point where the existing system is no longer stable and everything shifts to a new structure.

There are greater laws that hold the process of change, but the shift is always precarious.

That’s where we are now. Like children who have spent too long in primary school, we are desperate to get to high school. But also slightly apprehensive about the unknown.

Don’t give up your power

There’s another more enlightened, albeit still religious, version of The Rapture, which goes like this.

The Apostles took Jesus at his word that he’d be back. They were waiting around for him to turn up and take charge again. Waiting. Waiting. Nothing. Nada. No Jesus.

The Apostles missed the nuance – that Jesus wasn’t going to pop up at the local cafe one day and buy them a latte, but that he could be found within. John wrote Revelations to let people know – don’t give up your power and authority. Look for the kingdom within.

Jesus is heir to the kingdom and we are co-heirs.

very loose version of Romans 8:17

We are not here to be saved

There are two important messages in this for us in 2020.

We should not be looking outside ourselves for saviours, or wisdom, or transformation. Everything we need is within us. It doesn’t mean we don’t connect with the world. Of course we do, but the real process is always within us. We are co-heirs to a higher dimensional consciousness that requires our participation.

We are not here to be saved, but to create.

I’m not just talking about religious leaders here. Notice how the incompetence of our civil leadership in this coronavirus crisis is creating a vacuum for the emergence of a new kind of leadership. People seeing what needs to be done, having the ability to do it, and just getting on.

Revelations 13 talks about a beast rising from the sea. It’s scary imagery, but the beast is generally said to represent empire and imperialism and the way early Christians were tempted away from the simplicity of their faith and into the marketplace. Or to put it another way – its the economy stupid.

When we are impoverished and forced into working to survive we don’t have time to look within. When our minds are so engaged with the latest gadget and fashion we become incapable of imagining a different life. We become dependent, and afraid of the ways our own creative power might threaten the status quo.

Not to go all Marxist on you, but when the wealth that flows from our participation is stripped from the system that sustains us, everything starts to die.

What happened to pleasure?

Here’s another interesting thing about the bible. It was written at a time of violent suppression of women and a more wholistic sacred. Three hundred years after the death of Christ, the Romans had taken control of the Church and reduced it to a philosophy of celibate old men.

The very notion of creation was removed from the narrative of humanity and given to a single upwardly mobile God. We succumbed to a cultural mythology built on a cataclysmic struggle of good and evil that would eventually destroy the earth.

Humanity lost our connection with nature, with sexual and sensual pleasure, with beauty and grace and to some extent with our ability to relate to each other without the intermediary of the marketplace or religion. We lost the very nature of life cycles. We gained religion and lost our feminine soul.

Is It Too Soon To Plan The Revolution?

We are heading towards a watershed in human consciousness. When Uranus was discovered in 1781 it triggered a shift in human DNA. The planet of sudden shifts and revolution, it’s discovery coincided with the French and American Revolutions. The bargain between the rulers and the ruled was being rewritten.

When Pluto moves into Gate 41 in 2027 we have a shift of ages. A new epochal age. We move from the Cross of Planning to the Cross of the Sleeping Phoenix. It will last until the year 2438, and bring sweeping shifts in human consciousness.

We are leaving behind the old tribal bargains. As presaged in Revelations, imperialism and rulership have run their course. We have been commodified and have fearfully laboured to the edge of our existence.

We are now entering a universe based on participation through individual perception and response. Far from the idea of rugged individualism that requires a gun to protect family and property, this new epoch is about finding our unique place within the greater matrix of consciousness.

You are at the centre of your life, so be there. Give everything the space to be what it is. Even if that has to be at home in quarantine for now.