We could easily step over the countless victims and in doing so, over the life of Jesus himself. He too was killed through the collaboration of tyrants. Heaven weeps.
This is an exploration of why we, as Christians, try to interpret the world’s disorder with the Bible in hand.
By that I mean we become inclined to skip over the suffering of the countless victims — to stop seeing them as flesh-and-blood people, the children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews of others. For with these 69,008 dead, countless more have been wounded in heart, soul, and life. An unimaginable sorrow.
By forcing them into our own end-time narratives, we strip them of the inherent dignity God gave to every person and reduce them to an event that “had to happen.”
"An end-time scenario has a tendency to simplify history and dehumanize people.
End-Time Scenarios
“It had to be this way” is perhaps the mother of all end-time interpretations, the idea that what happens simply had to happen.
Once you are convinced of this, everything that occurs becomes part of God’s plan or will for the world. It smells of predestination: everything is foreordained and desired. You simply have to submit to it.
As tempting as this may be for those who want quick answers (and a bit of peace of mind), it’s far too simplistic. God would be nothing more than the Geppetto of our Pinocchio. You no longer have to engage with what happens, because it will unfold as it will. God does what He wants, and you can’t change it.
This way of thinking is often tied to a handful of Bible verses:
In the end times, terrible things will happen. It’s part of the plan (Revelation 22:11).
This conflict is part of the “birth pains” Jesus spoke of (Matthew 24:7).
Israel will be attacked and will suffer greatly (Zechariah 12–14; Revelation 19:19).
This tragic event is one of the “signs” of the end of time (Luke 21:29).
Everything happens for a reason or a purpose, even for Israel (Romans 8–11).
These are just a few examples. I haven’t even mentioned the covenant texts that bind God and Israel together as a people. Yet even there, the covenant assumes Israel will do what is right — see the many prophetic calls to faithfulness (Micah, Hosea, Amos, etc.).
Another line of thought is that of dispensationalism, the idea that Israel still has a specific role to play in God’s historical timeline. That, too, underlies many end-time narratives: that everything, even suffering, has its appointed place in history. A dangerous idea.
Don’t get me wrong, the concept of the end of time has a place in Christian theology, and these verses may indeed be part of a broader understanding of what we can expect. What Jesus said deserves serious attention. He foresaw a dramatic event — perhaps even in his own day — but it didn’t happen.
If he could be mistaken, how much more we?
The early Christians, too, had to come to terms with the disappointment that the end did not come. Many letters in the New Testament carry that sentiment (see 2 Peter, for example).
Yet we often do to Jesus what we do to others: reduce him to a symbol. He brought salvation through his death, but we’ve lost interest in his life. We strip him, too, of his humanity.
"Jesus foresaw a dramatic event — perhaps even in his own time — but it didn’t happen. If he could be wrong, how much more we?
The Value of the Individual
My warning is about the mechanism of our end-time thinking, how it blinds us to present, personal suffering.
“But what about all those people?” my grandfather once asked me after a tsunami struck the Indian Ocean. “If all those people die just like that, does God still see me?”
What could I say to him?
Yet that — above all that — has God’s attention: individual suffering. Who still remembers Abraham debating with God about the one righteous person in the city (Gen. 18)? Or the blood of Abel crying out from the ground (Gen. 4)? Or Jesus assuring us that even the hairs on our heads are numbered (Luke 12)?
How can we then believe that the death of 69,008 individuals goes unnoticed, or worse, is intended?
We. We humans do this to each other. Maybe not you or I directly, but people do this to people. And the day will come when we will have to give account.
The deaths of these people will not be a footnote in some historical peace plan. Even if we humans look away, God does not.
Today’s heroes are not necessarily God’s heroes. The Nobel Peace Prize carries no stamp of heavenly approval.
How could anyone who supplies weapons for war ever receive a peace prize — especially when those weapons have taken so many innocent lives?
So do not be blinded by your own vision of the “end times.” In doing so, you fulfill the warning of Ecclesiastes: “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.” (Eccl. 1:15)
Justifying What Is Crooked
Why, then, do we still try to make straight what is crooked?
I fear — and this is only a theory — because of cognitive dissonance. We can no longer align what we think with what we feel. We feel tension over what’s happening and can’t make it fit.
We watch the disturbing behavior of the state of Israel and reach for the Bible for answers. How can God’s “apple of the eye” behave so terribly?
The first group tries to “prove” that all reports are fake news, turning to alternative media and denying or defending Israel’s actions. The second hides behind dubious end-time scenarios loosely based on Scripture.
It’s an understandable impulse. But the Bible, even when it speaks of Israel’s chosenness, also speaks with a critical voice. It offers no secret insight into world history. It is not a comprehensive historical record or a predictive code. It is not history, but testimony, the witness of a people who experienced God, with the life of Jesus as its climax.
No, the Book of Revelation offers no solution. That beautiful apocalyptic text is not a blueprint for the future. As much as I wish the Bible gave us that kind of certainty, it doesn’t.
The Bible is not an oracle, not a fortune-teller, not a prophetic calendar. In fact, we should not even attempt to use it that way.
At the very least, let’s hold this together: that something is foretold does not mean it is willed. These are two different things.
God does not will this. We do.
"The Bible is not an oracle, not a fortune-teller, not a prophetic blueprint. And we should not try to make it one.
Stay Sober, Stay in Love
So what should we do?
Exactly what the first letter of Peter says: “The end is near; therefore be alert and of sober mind, so that you may love.”(1 Pet. 4)
Stay faithful to what is good, because it is good to do good. Stay faithful to the teaching of Jesus, because what he says is good. And what he says is simple: treat others as you would want to be treated. Love God with all that you are, including your mind.
So stay sober and watchful. Do not be tempted to hate or to harden your heart. Keep counting every person we have lost. Do not dismiss them as “casualties of war” or reduce them to a number in some strange end-time vision.
That God still continues the human project at all is a mystery to me. But like Abraham, we keep believing in the goodness of people and in the right of every person to live.
What do you think we should do in these times?
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