"IT AIN'T OVER 'TIL IT'S OVER"

By John Santosuosso



In 1947 at the age of eight years I attended my first major league baseball game.  The New York Yankees were playing the then Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park.  In our South Jersey neighborhoods and school yards the baseball wars started early in life.  Most of my friends were devout A's fans.  On the other hand, I was already living a life of quiet desperation.  I was a Phillies fan.  Yes, a pennant would come three years later, but in 1947 they were still too often cellar dwellers.  However, here was hope.  Joe DiMaggio was coming to the plate.  He would put those "Amazing A's" in their place!  The legendary DiMaggio then proceeded to strike out, and ultimately the A's went to the clubhouse with a 5 to 3 victory.

In my sorrow I had not given full attention to another Yankees player that day.  They had a young catcher by the name of Yogi Berra.  No one realized it at the time but not only was Yogi a Hall of Fame catcher and manager,  in his own unique way he was a philosopher.  Remembered for a variety of "Yogisms" down through the years, undoubtedly the most loved is his classic, "It ain't over 'til it's over."  This was certainly inspired by games in which Yogi played and managed.  He had seen teams with seemingly nothing left to cheer about suddenly come roaring back to snatch a win at the very moment when it seemed hopeless. I well remember one National League example of that when the dreaded (as far as the Phillies were concerned) then Brooklyn Dodgers had two out in the bottom of the ninth inning, with nobody on base, and were trailing the St. Louis Cardinals 2 to 0.  The Dodgers won, 3 to 2.  You see, it never is over until it's over.

Today, I think our churches and our society could use some Yogi Berras.  I am reminded of an old Gospel hymn, "In Times Like These We Need a Savior." Well, yes, we need (and have!) a Savior, so maybe we need a lot more optimism that He will get the job done.  It ain't over.  Caution, if you surf the Internet or look at the cover of the tabloids in the grocery store, you see warnings that the end is near, and it is not going to be pretty.  There are screaming headlines that the rapture (even though that word never appears in the Bible) is coming, and most of us will be left behind to face a great tribulation.  Of course Nostradamus has ten predictions for 2024, and you are not going to like any of them.  If Nostradamus does not have you depressed enough, the Bulgarian prophet Baba Vanga might send you over the brink with her 2024 prophecies.  One blog I read regularly has numerous questions and answers about religious topics. An uncomfortably large percentage focus either on Noah and his ark or the book of Revelation.  I must admit I never cared much for the Noah story. Yes, the animals are cute, but the God I worship does not drown almost all of them along with nearly every man, woman, and child, plus their pets, and even their house plants.  We will come back to Revelation shortly.

This malaise we are living in is quite dangerous, far more than the actual reality we face.  Gary Moore, who before moving was a member of St. Peter's, is a well known financial advisor and author.  He was a good friend of one whom many believe was the greatest investor of the past century, Sir John Templeton.  Gary was a pioneer in the area of socially responsible and faith-based investing.  He has consistently warned that people who are continually afraid and depressed make both poor investors and builders of the Kingdom of God.  When you believe Chicken Little was right after all, you are not likely to invest your money in projects that will benefit churches or society, or feel that much of anything you do can have a positive effect. You are more likely to just sit and feel helpless, or maybe stuff your mattress.  Although retired, Gary continues to write for the benefit of our churches, their members, our country, and the world.  He understands Yogi got it right.  It ain't over.  Some of Gary's books are still available from Amazon and Thriftbooks.

Recently St. Peter's member Dick Grant brought to my attention a wonderful little book by N. T. Wright entitled Surprised By Hope.  Over the years Wright and I have sometimes had a different perspective on things; but not this time.  He states that what we do to try to heal the wounds of our present world and build God's Kingdom may not be fully visible until after we are gone.  He uses the example of the Medieval cathedral builders.  Those that constructed the base knew they would never see the completion of the building.  However, they had faith that by the power of God it would be completed.  Wright urges us to get to work now.  It ain't over.

Maybe it is time to take a look at the book of Revelation.  If you want gloom and doom this is the place to find it.  Unfortunately most Christians do not know how to interpret this work.  If you want the "full treatment" I would highly recommend Jonathan Kirsch's book, "A History of the End of the World."

Other than that he was an exile by the name of John, living on the Greek isle of Patmos, we do not know much about the author.  He was not the Apostle John.  When I visited Patmos and the cave where John allegedly authored Revelation, I wondered if he would have done so had he realized how much mischief it would cause.  Like Jesus and Paul, John the Seer was an apocalyptic prophet.  As such he was looking for God to intervene in a dramatic way in the near future.  He was NOT trying to predict things that would occur hundreds or even thousands of years into the future.  If we take a look at chapter 22 verses 6 and 20, we see that John believed that what he was predicting would soon take place.  This means that the horror that John contemplated had already happened or it was never going to happen. It is time to stop reading Revelation and get back to the Gospels, the letters of Paul, the hope of the prophecies of Isaiah and Jerimiah and boldly declare, it ain't over.  When everyone else is full of despair, Jeremiah goes out and buys real estate! (Jeremiah, chapter 32.)

Perhaps we should briefly take a look at Nostradamus, since he is so often misused to support misinterpretations of scripture, including Revelation.  Nostradamus was a French physician and astrologer.  Between 1550 and 1558 he wrote over 900 quatrains divided into ten "centuries".  Whether any of these ever came true is a matter of debate.  What is pretty clear is that if he got something correct, it is impossible to know that until after the event has happened.  Perhaps his best known prophecy is an alleged prediction of the death of the French King Henry II (I:35), but some claim it never appeared in writing until after the king's death. In any case, the vast majority of his prophecies have no dates, and the few that do are almost always dated several centuries in our past .  One (X:72) is dated 1999, but nothing happened in that year that even remotely fits the quatrain.  In the preface to his work he claims that his prophecies extend all the way to the year 3797.  Clearly there is nothing in Nostradamus that supports the book of Revelation, pertains to the year 2024, or predicts we are in the "last days."

As for Baba Vanga, she never committed any of her prophecies to writing, so it is impossible to know what she said.  The English seer Mother Shipton probably never existed.  It is time to stop reading the tabloids and get back to the Gospels, because, "It ain't over 'til it's over."

N. T. Wright sums it up in a very few words.  "Creation is to be redeemed." The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not an act in vain. It is God at work, redeeming the creation.  As Genesis so beautifully puts it,  "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." (1:31).  God intends to put it back that way.  It is time for us to also  be at work. We might start with just a few random acts of kindness, while remembering, "It ain't over 'til it's over."  Shalom.