A few weeks ago someone asked me why I think that the world is so evil these days. I suggested that it was the way of a sinful world, that the troubles besetting the world seem to come in waves. Yes, there is a lot wrong in the world at the moment, but I’m not sure that this is the worst time ever.

Just think of a young person in 1910 looking forward to the future with confidence. And yet that young person would experience two world wars, a flu epidemic, and the Great Depression, if they survived all that. The troubles that beset the world in the first half of the 20^th century were severe and not really foreseeable at the beginning of the century. Yes, the conditions for these disasters were all there: enthusiastic militarism, increased world-wide connectivity, and a hollow global financial system, but who would have known that it would come to this?

Or think of the Mongol invasions in the 13^th century. As far as disruption and cruelty goes they were clearly enormous. As we look back on history, we can clearly see continual upheavals, disruption and suffering. Some of those affected large swathes of territory and millions of people; other events turned out to be disastrous more locally, but were not felt any less severely by the affected population.

We can also see times of stability and peace, when life continued as it had for centuries, people went about their daily work and their family celebrations. Sometimes such continuity is quite local: for example, in the Syrian mountains there are a few villages in which Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is till spoken, and in which the way of life continued as it has been for centuries. Increased tourism and more lately the Syrian  civil war, have also brought change here.

As we know from history and the Bible, good times and prosperity often lead people to fall away from God and are the seed of strife and troubles. Bad times often refocus people on the essential and to a more purposeful life. We clearly cannot see it yet, but there’s a chance that good eventually will also come out of our current difficulties. And yes, there is the possibility of Jesus coming again, but not because the signs are unmistakably there, but because he will come like a thief in the night.