Consider Millennium Question: Why 2K?

`You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why. …”

There are only 364 shopping days until the day we’ve all looked forward to. No, not Christmas - Y2K!

Some look forward to Y2K with eager anticipation, some with great dread. Some are preparing for the worst kind of things to happen when computers worldwide try to cope with the number “2000.” Others are confident that our impending computer problems will be resolved before the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000.

Entire cottage industries are developing around survivalist fears of Y2K. Many religious people fervently believe some kind of spiritual catastrophe or spiritual rebirth will sweep over the world.

Panic and ecstasy are uneasy partners as our world heads second after unrelenting second toward that magic moment. Post offices across the land already have countdown clocks overlooking the customer counters so we can be reminded of the clock ticking each second away as we buy a stamp or mail a package.

I may be hopelessly naive. For sure, I am hopefully skeptical. Because there is a question in my mind I haven’t heard asked before: “Why 2K?”

The answer is clearer to me when we’re talking about our computer-run world. There is some logic when we harbor significant concern about what our computers will do.

My mind finds it nearly impossible to understand the enormity of what it will take to make commercial, industrial and governmental computers Y2K compliant.

But I have to believe that decent, competent people are going to find the answers and get the job done.

“Why 2K?” does bring puzzlement, frustration and some anger, however, when we slip beneath the computer challenge and rummage around our spiritual fears and superstitions.

Why do we put so much stock in an arbitrary calendar that biblical scholars have debated for centuries already?

Was Jesus born in 0 A.D.? Do I hear 4 B.C.? Any other date you care to offer?

There appears to be legitimate concerns about exactly what year Jesus was born. And while Dec. 25 is the commonly accepted cultural date of Jesus’ birth, there is strong evidence that date is arbitrary, also.

So if Jesus’ birth date is technically iffy, how can we be so sure that the millennium will begin - for better or worse - in 364 days? We can’t be sure!

And this doesn’t even take into account the definitive statements Jesus makes about no one knowing the time when God will usher the Kingdom into full-time existence.

How some church leaders and TV evangelists can hold to their literal biblical interpretations while ignoring Jesus’ own words is too far beyond me!

But a firm date is certainly great for marketing religious books, movies, trinkets and God only knows what else we’ll see before 1999 comes to a close. Personally, I’m not looking forward to 1999 for this very reason.

I’m afraid that the needle on my religious nausea meter is going to bounce into the red zone more often than not.

So today’s rambling is as much - maybe more so - for my own benefit as for anyone else who is leery of what the subculture of religious manipulation has in store for spiritually vulnerable people in 1999.

Perhaps you will pray with me for healthy skepticism, common sense, increased discernment and a mindful awareness of God’s hospitable love as we try to fully live each day of 1999.

We can do that and still occasionally ask the question: “Why 2K?”