October 22 | Moments Almanac | Apocalypse

Welcome to Moments Almanac for October 22nd. There have been plenty of predictions about the end of the world. And unto this day, they've all been wrong. Which come to think of it as a rather comforting statistic. But on October 22nd, two groups of Americans separated by 118 years found themselves staring into the future and wondering whether there would be a tomorrow. One group desperately wanted to end the world, the other desperately wanted to continue, and both would remember that October night for the rest of their lives. Our story begins in 1844. A Baptist lay preacher named William Miller had become convinced that Jesus Christ was about to return. Miller was a serious student of Scripture. He had spent years studying biblical prophecy, particularly a mysterious passage in the book of Daniel, Daniel 8.14. It speaks of 2,300 evenings and mornings and the cleansing of the sanctuary, and Miller interpreted those days as years and concluded that the prophecy pointed toward the return of Christ. Eventually his followers settled on a date. October 22nd, 1844. They were certain, not hopeful, not cautiously optimistic, certain. And as that day arrived, thousands of believers waited, some gathered in homes, others assembled with friends and fellow believers. They prayed, they sang, they watched the sky. Imagine the conversations that must have taken place, the unfinished work left behind, the farewells, the anticipation. A farmer named Hiram Edson was so convinced that Christ was coming that he told his neighbors he never expected to see them again. Why make plans for November when eternity begins in October? And then the sun went down. Nothing. The evening grew darker, nothing. Midnight came and went. Still nothing. The world continued turning, the stars remained in their place, and the people who had spent their day expecting heaven suddenly found themselves facing another morning on earth. Hiram Edison later described their grief. We wept and wept till the day dawn. Think about that. They weren't merely embarrassed. They were heartbroken. The next morning Edson and a companion walked through his cornfield partly to avoid the ridicule of their neighbors. There is something almost unbearably human about that image. Two men walking through a cornfield. Yesterday they believed they would be walking the streets of gold, and today they were walking through dirt. History would remember October twenty second, eighteen forty four as the great disappointment. And the name fits. But there's something else worth remembering. These were sincere people, people who loved the scriptures, people who believed in the promises of Christ. Their mistake wasn't believing that Jesus would return. Their mistake was believing they knew when. Jesus had already said that no one knows the day or the hour, and sometimes the most dangerous thing we can do with a mystery is convince ourselves we've solved it. Now let's move forward exactly 118 years, October twenty second, nineteen sixty two, another Monday, another October evening, another nation wondering whether the world was about to end. But this time nobody was hoping for it. At seven o'clock Eastern Time, President John F. Kennedy appeared on television. He was sitting in the Oval Office, his expression was grave, his words were measured. American intelligence had discovered Soviet nuclear missiles being installed in Cuba, just ninety five miles from Florida. The United States and the Soviet Union were now locked in a confrontation that could become a nuclear war. Kennedy announced a naval quarantine of Cuba and warned that any nuclear missile launched from the island against a nation in the Western Hemisphere would be regarded as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States. Millions listened. And suddenly ordinary things seemed extraordinarily precious, a family dinner, a child's laughter, a quiet neighborhood, a Tuesday morning, because there was now a terrifying possibility that those ordinary things might disappear. In eighteen forty four, Americans looked forward to heaven, expecting the end of history, and in 1962, Americans looked toward Cuba fearing the end of civilization. And the remarkable thing is this both groups went to bed that October night without knowing what tomorrow would bring. And here's the lesson that I pick up from that. We humans have an extraordinary appetite for certainty. We want to know what comes next. We want to calculate the future, control the outcome, circle the date. But faith isn't the ability to predict tomorrow. Faith is the willingness to trust God when tomorrow remains unknown. And maybe that's why Jesus didn't tell his followers to figure out the date of his return. He told them to be ready, to be faithful, to keep their lamps burning, to love their neighbors, to do the work entrusted to them. Because whether the world ends tomorrow or continues for another thousand years, our calling remains the same. Be faithful today. October 22nd reminds us of two very different kinds of relief and disappointment. One generation cried because tomorrow came, and the other generation prayed that tomorrow would come. And somewhere between those two is a lesson for all of us. Tomorrow is not ours to predict. Today is ours to steward. And if tomorrow comes, well, that's another opportunity for grace, and another chance to love, another day to be faithful, and another reason to thank the Lord that the world is still turning. And that's Moments Almanac for today. And if the Lord doesn't come tomorrow, there'll be another one. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.