By: Ian McKerracher, FBB Speaker

It’s now 2022 and here we are driving down the road into the Future of our collective lives. The holiday seasons of Christmas, New Year’s, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and however many other celebrations there are, have quickly faded away in our rear-view mirror and the oncoming traffic is getting more of our attention. Coming up is the Next Big Holiday on our calendar: We celebrate the prognosticational powers of various varmints scattered around the world on February 2. In North America, this day is commonly called Groundhog Day. 

            We aren’t the only ones who celebrate creaturely seers, of course. You can actually tell one’s native land by the preferred prophetic varmint. I’m amazed at the length of the list of prognosticating animals in Europe! Assorted bears, badgers, bear-rats (whatever that is), marmots, and foxes are just the short list. It goes on. In Scotland, they have a snake, and, at the Isle of Man, it is a bird. 

            But it is in North America, where advertising (and likely the movie), helped ensure the Day really took off. Here a wide array of assorted ground squirrels dominate the, er, underground burrow. The biggest name in all the hoopla is Punxsutawney Phil, from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. But he (she?) is only one of a “company of the prophets.”  Milltown, New Jersey has Milltown Mel. The Turtleback Zoo, also in New Jersey, has two (?) Otis the Hedgehog and Essex Ed. New York City has Staten Island Chuck (until he bit the mayor and was replaced). And the list goes on. In Canada we have Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia, Fred la marmotte in Quebec, Willie Warton in Ontario, and Balzac Billy right here in good ol’ Alberta.

Regardless of where they are from, all these varmints have one thing in common: They exist to tell us the weather-future. You see, these furry-faced friends of humanity supposedly emerge from their wintery snooze on the second day of February and look for their shadow. Though I struggled with the actual arrangement for years, I’m pretty sure this is what happens: if it is a sunny day, their shadow can be offered as evidence that the winter will last a further six weeks. If the day is cloudy and there is no shadow to be seen, it means that we will enjoy an early spring. 

Of course, a surreptitious peek behind the curtain with a scientific bend would show a disturbing trend. This whole enterprise of prophetic procedural prognostications has been a dismal failure. Who knew rodents could get predictions so wrong! Some boosters claim 75 % accuracy for Alberta’s Balzac Billy but meteorologists would counter that claim with raw historical weather data. Some of our mammalian seers hit, according to the carefully gathered records, only in the low 40 percentile of accuracy. Warton Willie’s accuracy is the worst of the bunch at about 29%. What this means is that our varmint visionaries are less accurate than sheer chance. SAY IT AIN’T SO!! Such a disappointment.

This whole business is interesting to me on a number of counts. It seems that the accuracy does not dampen the enthusiasm of the followers of this method of prediction. The various looked-for shadows around the world tend to make it onto the evening news circuit on TV, if anyone looks at the TV for news, anymore. If not, the news item is still inescapable as the results are beamed into our subconsciousness through all the other media methods we have at our disposal with great abandon.  Regardless of the dismal failure of this way to learn about the future, bloggers, podcasters, broadcasters, and anyone else in the choir of voices we allow into our lives, will cheerfully tell us whether some ground-dwelling rodent sees its shadow on February 2nd. Now of course, this doesn’t mean everyone actually believes the rodent; most in fact may have little trust in the varmints. But this lack of trust clearly doesn’t prevent fans from celebrating the day with songs and occasions to party.

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In fact, predictions like this are big business. Psychic services in the US alone bring in $2.2 BILLION annually. People want to know the future. We read our horoscope (for entertainment purposes only). We have our tea leaves read in a little cozy coffee house we know. We look for, and find signs of events below the coming horizon. We play what we hope are predictive hunches at roulette tables or at race tracks, believing that we have some insight into the future of the roll of dice or sports play. Just to be clear, if gambling can be included in the need for knowing the future, we are up to $44 billion! That means that there has been $44 billion worth of prophecies by people betting on their visions.

Why is it so important for us humans to be able to see the future; to know what is going to happen? Regardless of whether we are in the church or outside it, we want to know what is over the horizon. Perhaps it is so that we can feel comfortable or safe in that assumed knowledge.  Maybe it’s because we crave guidance from someone who knows better. For some, knowing the future could be lucrative, offering ways to make a quick buck. 

But before Christians become smug about this, we should acknowledge that predictions have become a big deal in the Church too. If the number of “prophetic” voices that are emailed to me by my friends are any indication, we have drifted some distance from what role prophecy should play in the lives of believers. “You gotta hear this person!” or “This guy is right on target!” or “The lady knows what’s going to happen SOON!” are the catchy headlines of some of the videos I receive from friendly Christians. Unfortunately, these videos rarely conform to the model given to us in scripture. Rather, these “prophecies” are all about promoting a speaker or church to garner public attention. It is important to know that prophecy in the biblical sense may include a view of the future, but it is more forth-telling what is God’s ideas about something and less fore-telling what is in the future. It is there to expose us to the mind of God in specific circumstances so that we can gain comfort, or we are encouraged or strengthened to keep trusting God. And it will NEVER contradict what God has clearly laid out in scripture. It is not there to tickle our fanciful notions about ourselves. 

These current “words of prophecy,” also don’t seem to move us to godly action. The prophetic words of scripture tend to make us fearful instead of comforting us. Even when the words are conditional, “If you do this, God will do that,” type-of-thing, we remain mostly unmoved to trust God. Rarely do current “prophecies” spur us to change things to which we are accustomed. But Christianity isn’t really all that complicated.  I am no Agabus, but I can read the writing in the book, which states: “If you read your bible, God will reveal Himself to you, like never before!” In other words, Biblical literacy will continue to be a great need in the Church. 

The office of the Prophet should be an esteemed one in the Church, for sure. Prophesying could even be seen as a part of the Christian package deal in the new life in Christ, if we read chapters 12 to 14 of 1 Corinthians. Prophecy is supposed to be for  “edification, exhortation, and comfort”, (1 Corinthians 14:3, NKJV) of God’s people but none of this is what I am seeing. Instead, mass e-mails meant to solicit funds or convince believers about a ‘prophet’s’ exalted position, is the norm. Prophecy is supposed to be much more relational, like everything else in Christianity. Prophets speak directly to those who need to hear the message. I cannot imagine accepting a prophecy from someone who I don’t know; from someone with whom I cannot have a conversation. 

So, here we are. Whether in the Church or in the field beside the home of a celebrated rodent, we look for the future while struggling with plans that would change our lives. We miss the day we are living in now and instead spend time searching for what’s coming later. I think we should refocus on things a little closer to home. Do the needed personal adjustments, through repentance, as God leads, and serve the Lord in the midst of the day at hand. Give honour to the prophet but make sure that he or she IS a prophet before we pay any attention to their white suits and sparkling smile. Lastly, let’s serve our generation by following the will of God which will always focus us on His glory.  Let’s celebrate the day that God created for us. Tomorrow will take care of itself. If it happens to be February 2, Happy Groundhog Day!