Sleep Well, We’ll All Most Likely Be Dead in the Morning

In case you were, I don’t know, living your life and touching grass this weekend, you may have missed that we’re expecting a Rapture on Tuesday, September 23rd. Or possibly on the 24th. No one has been really clear on which time zone the Rapture adheres to. It may be a rolling Rapture, like on New Year’s Eve, when you watch the countdown in Australia hours before Dick Clark’s soul in an animatronic body does the Times Square countdown. Who is to say?

If the Rapture is something you’ve never heard of before, congratulations! You probably still remember some people’s phone numbers. My brain is chockablock full of useless information about stuff like this. The Rapture is a Christian but non-biblical belief describing the sudden, instantaneous removal of all believers to meet Jesus Christ in the air, combining the dead and the living into glorified bodies.

There are a whole bunch of mostly evangelicals who believe, unironically, that sometime in the next couple of days they’re going to float off, up to heaven, while the rest of us are stuck down here on Earth to survive The End Times. Ta ta, y’all.

I tried to find some reasonable video explainers, but they’re all about half an hour long. And if the world is ending tomorrow, no one’s got time for all of that. I did find this nice lady’s YouTube short that didn’t make me want to tear my hair out. So you can watch that if you’d like.

Or, you can watch the trailer for Nic Cage’s 2014 epic drama, Left Behind, which should give you some idea of what to expect.

That’s a remake of the 2000 film by the same name that Kirk Cameron starred in. They’re based on the sixteen-book Left Behind series. It was popular in the mid-’90s, and now you can find most of them taking up shelf space in thrift stores.

All weekend, some people on social media have been using #raptureready to make us aware of our impending doom, to sell their belongings, and to let all of us unsaved heathens know what they’ve been doing to make our time here easier after they all float off the planet.

This lady found out something “interesting” about the date September 23rd that may, or may not, be relevant. She doesn’t want to say for sure that the Rapture is happening this week. But maybe!

@be_your_own_best_friend I thought this was interesting… #September #interesting #rapture #Jesus #923 ♬ YESHUA The Savior - glorify

She made that video in August. The evangelicals have known about this Rapture for at least a month, and they’re only letting us know about it now? Lame. They could have started selling their stuff a lot sooner. If anyone still wants to give belongings away, I’m in NYC and could use a new fridge. Preferably side-by-side.

This nice lady is leaving notes on dollar store Bibles to fortify us during the tribulations.

@makinanentertainmenterer GRWM as I plan my rapture. A whole bunch of rapture approved folks in Glendale, AZ. 🤞 #rapture #raptureready #magacult ♬ original sound - makinanentertainmenterer

This Australian guy is really grasping at straws in this video, where everything in a YouTube video about the Rapture not happening is a clue that the Rapture IS DEFINITELY GOING TO HAPPEN.

@tilahun.desalegn #Jesus #Jesusiscoming #rapture #raptureready ♬ Contemplating Your Face - Josué Novais Piano Worship

This woman has thought of everything we may need after all of the good Christians are Raptured. She’s so nice to tell people to fill their cars’ gas tanks and make sure their phones are charged and unlocked in case someone needs to steal the items they left behind.

@myhomes777 Be prepared and Keep looking up! #fyp #raptureready #Christiantiktok #Jesus #endtimes ♬ thoughtful piano melody(1499101) - naopapa

If you were wondering what a Rapture Letter is. I found a website to help you prepare for The Rapture. They provide a handy template for the letter you should leave out explaining your disappearance. “(IT WAS NOT ALIENS - IT WAS NOT COVID OR A VARIANT.)”

I’m not trying to stoke anyone’s Rapture anxiety. This is not my first Rapture rodeo. I remember sitting in math class my senior year of high school, waiting to watch the nuns get Raptured up because radio evangelist Harold Camping said the world was ending. What a disappointment.

The world was supposed to end because of a Mayan prophecy in 2012. Also disappointing. But we did get a Roland Emmerich movie out of it that I love to hate-watch.

Quasi-religious cults are always trying to convince their followers that the end is nigh and the only safety to be found is if they have faith in their leader. In Poltergeist II: The Other Side, we learn that the reason The Freeling’s house is haunted is because that creepy Preacher Kane convinced his followers to die in a cave with him as the world ended. So predicting apocalypses is nothing new. But they do make for some really great social media hashtags.

Is Christ coming to gather up his followers this week? Probably not. But, if you happen to notice your neighbors or co-workers floating up into the sky tomorrow, ask them to throw you their wallets and to tell you where their car is parked. We’ll all meet back here on Thursday to figure out how to get the ‘ol Murdertank up and running and brainstorm on best practices for looting.