Zits and the Book of Revelation
Zits the cartoon strip, not zits the skin blemishes we all remember from our years as teenagers.
I still read the comics and since the passing of Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, Zits, the strip maintained by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman has become my favorite daily read on the comics page. Jeremy Duncan is a typical 15 year old and one of his best friends, Pierce, who lives up to his name with piercing over most of his body, complete with braces for maximum effect, had an exchange recently on the end of the world.
In the January 15, 16, and 17 drawings, Pierce is walking around with a sign announcing “The End is Coming.” He passes Jeremy who is by his high school locker and after reading the sign asks Pierce: “Before or after the geometry quiz on Friday?” And Pierce responds” “I’m telling everyone to prepare both ways.”
The next day Pierce walks up to Jeremy and announces: “In less than two years the ancient Mayan calendar reaches the end of a 5,126-year era and resets itself to zero! Do you have any idea what this could mean?” To which Jeremy responds with a question: “That a bunch of ancient Mayans will be dating their checks ‘5127’ by mistake?” And then Pierce asks: “”Why can’t you ever take unfounded science seriously?”
In the final strip dealing with the Mayan calendar, Pierce is holding a chart before Jeremy and exclaims: “Look, Jeremy, the ancient Mayan calendar is about to reset itself to zero! At that moment, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in 26,000 years!!” Jeremy asks: “And that will mean . . . ?” And Pierce shouts out: “Chaos! Destruction! Maybe the end of civilization as we know it!” And Jeremy responds: “Or maybe not.” The final panel has Pierce asking: “Why do you always have to be so negative?”
Reading the Mayan calendar with the view to determining the end will prove no more accurate than the way well-known preachers and teachers have used the Book of Revelation to predict the end of the world, the recent conflict in Gaza, for example, notwithstanding. Like Pierce, let’s tell everyone to prepare both ways: the end may be tomorrow or it may not be tomorrow; let’s be prepared for we know neither the day nor the hour.
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