Thought for the Week

With the triumph of Trump, growing inequality and anger, a new hostility to refugees and migrants, and the divisiveness of Brexit, the world seems more uncertain than ever.

As Syria bleeds, children cross seas in desperate boats, and barbaric extremist cults seem to advance unchecked, it would be easy to speak in apocalyptic tones.

It would be tempting to give into a fear that the world (or certainly the world as we know it) may be coming to an end. Yet it is almost certainly not.

Last year, the broadcaster Andrew Neil addressed ISIS saying: “I think the outcome is pretty clear to everybody but you. Whatever atrocities you’re currently capable of committing, you will lose.” Neil’s verdict is one the Christian should share.

In Matthew 24, Jesus’s disciples marvelled at the Jerusalem Temple. Jesus replied that this magnificent building would soon come crashing down, a prophecy that was fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem 40 years later.

Yet Jesus was clear: a history would play out where there would be crisis and calamity, plague, pestilence, and famine, wars and rumours of wars; where certainties, civilisations and empires would come and would go. However, none of these things was of eternal significance, all that mattered was the knowledge that one day the Son of God would return and all eyes would see him and know his authority over all the earth.

We are entering Advent this week. In Advent, the Church proclaims that just as Christ came into a broken world at Christmas, so he will come again. That Christ will come means that we can face life without despair. Rev Alistair May Stonelaw Church