Waiting For the Rapture

BELATEDLY I BECAME AWARE that on September 22, 2023, precisely at the stroke of midnight, the rapture was going to occur. I became aware of it only through repeated posts on Facebook by many different people, all saying the same thing: Rapture,September 22, midnight. Other than on facebook, I never saw nor heard anything about it; I wonder whether the meme was popular all across social media, or just on Facebook? Did it have a life outside the internet,in the real world of real space and time? Was there a specific real world church involved, perhaps as the instigator, or was the latest rapture claim the conbined effert of interdenominational cooperation? Did one of the big time million dollar TV evangelists have a vision, or a talk with God? Asalways, of course, the predicted,prophesied latest incarnation of the rapture date came and went, raptureless. Throughout history there have been numerous supposedly soon to come raptures, and never yet has the rapture come. Actually, it can be asserted, with some confidence, that everyday, since the dreadful day when Christ was crucified,someboy has predicted his return on that day. Every day for the past two thousand years has been predicted as the rapture. According to three out of the four goepels, Jesus told his followers that after he was put to death, he would return to them within their lifetmes, while they were still alive. We've been waiting ever since.In 1843 the reverend William Millertold his many followers that a certain day in October would be the day of the rapture, and to prepare for it. Prepare they did. Thousands of people, thousands of families, sold all their possessions, including their homes, and gathered together on top of hills in hundreds of American towns and cities, waiting to be swooped up and into heaven. They waited all night, but were never swooped up. They would have gone home, but many of the no longer had homes to go to, and had to make new plans quickly..Daunted but undeterrred, the reverend Wlliam Miller announced that through a minor miscalculation by one of his many subordinates,they had actually gotten the rapture date wrong by one year,and that it would, beyond all doubt this time, take place the following October,1844. Once again, people liquadated their possessions, gathered atop hills, and waited. Again, nothing happened. This time tere was some anger and resentment, and the reverend Miller layed low for awhile. Miller's ministry somehow managed to survive,and grew to become the Seventh Day Adventist church we know today, with a considerable number of members and congregations across America and other countries. And yet,the repature narrative keeps repeating itself. Whether this latest one was only online or had a life in the real word may,in the long run, not really matter. Whether it exists in real life or not, an online life is inevitable for the rapture meme. Future incarnations of it will probably circulate and multiply over and over again, online, and in real space and time. We humans just can't seem to get rid of this nonsense, end of the world theories, etc..The rapture didn't come this time either; it never will come, but that won't keep people from trying to create it.