What’s Going on?

I’ve just been looking through a historical CD - “Millennium, 20th Century, Day by Day” - hardly an entertainment! Since WW II we haven’t stopped fighting, - Vietnam, Cambodia, Tibet, the 6 Day war, Suez, Indonesia, not to mention threat of other wars - especially the Cold war. In the first decade from 1950, over 15 revolutions! Public life has got more violent - think of the assassination attempts, and race riots. And the years that followed were not much better; think of Nigeria-Biafra, Vietnam still, Cuba, Tibet, revolutions in Bosnia, Chile, Algeria, Greece, China, Ethiopia, Palestine... And now the threat of terrorism. And then, natural disasters!

Mecca in 1990, the appalling floods in Bangladesh the following year, and the eruption of Pinatubo, Hurricane Mitch in Central America, earthquakes in L.A., Kobe, Columbia and China, and since then, devastating droughts in Africa and India, forest fires in Australia, and most recently, the Tsunami.

One might say that there have always been disasters; it’s just that news gets about more now, but so many of them break all the records - ‘of the century,’ ‘since records were kept’, ‘within living memory’. We even had a record breaker storm in the UK a few years back... And on top of all this is the climate change, ‘global warming’ melting ice caps, a changing Gulf Stream. Oh, and just in case you’re still feeling cheerful, hadn’t I better mention the global spread of things like cattle disease, bird-flu, and AIDS?

Maybe I’m getting a bit gleam-in- the-eye, but I had a strange feeling when I was reading Jesus’ words in Luke chapter 21 and Mark 13 recently: ”You shall hear of wars and revolutions... earthquakes and famines and plagues… distress among the nations dismayed by the roar and surge of the sea…” Well He also talks of strange things in the sky and worldwide persecution, and we haven’t seen them (yet!). But Jesus also said “Don’t be afraid… look up, for you’ll soon be free!” Which is a great comfort, if you can trust Him - but will we know Him well enough for that?

John Peck