All that Millennium Nonsense

The other day I noticed in a newsagency that you can now buy a "New Millennium Diary." What nonsense! I thought. It is just a diary for the year 2000. It would be a massive thing if it was really for the new millennium - and it would long outlive its owner!

Then it's argued by part of politics that we need a healthy budget and tax system to take us into the new millennium - and by others that we should choose to become a republic for the new millennium.

What nonsense! We certainly need to get our federal and state budgets right for the next year and to plan well for the next decade or two. The referendum on the republican proposals needs important consideration and decision now, but... it's not really millennium stuff!

And will the world's computers, banking systems - and aeroplanes... - crash on 1st January next year? There may be some difficulties, but the Y2K predictions will probably have scared enough people into action to prevent the "worst scenario".

And will the year 2000 prove to be a crisis time in human history - and even perhaps herald the return of the Lord?

It is certainly spawning speculation in books and TV documentaries. The start of the present millennium was a time of great expectation and fear that perhaps the end of the world was at hand. A thousand years later we may be wondering again.

There are those who tell us the next millennium doesn't start until 1/1/2001 - since there was no "year zero." For all practical purposes we are thinking of 2000. But, if you want to get particular, Gregory XIII devised our present calendar in 1582 (there have been small adjustments since) and miscalculated so that Jesus was probably born in 4BC! The third millennium has already begun!

Jesus said, "Be on your guard, then, because you do not know what day your Lord will come" (Mt. 24.42). He expects us to be doing the things he has given us to do - always alert and ready, whatever the hour!