“But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
 the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

We’ve all heard the glass-half-full, glass-half-empty definition of an optimist and a pessimist.

The trouble with that description is that it presents a false dichotomy, suggesting that there are just two kinds of people: optimists and pessimists. The optimist sees the world as a good place that’s getting better. The pessimist sees the world as a bad place that’s getting worse.

The problem is that both are right–and both are wrong.

Many of us live pretty good lives, though not perfect. We recognize that the overall standard of living, and certainly the standard of living for most people reading this, is far higher than it was 100 years ago, or 500 years ago, or 1,000 years ago. Optimism seems warranted.

On the other hand, we can all point to aspects of life, both individual and societal, that aren’t as good as they were a decade or two or three ago (some of this is reality; some is simply the fog of nostalgia). We know that inflation is an issue, and there are looming environmental concerns, and the state of civil public discourse seems to be in a never-ending nosedive.

In short, neither optimism nor pessimism fully reflect reality. Ultimately, the glass just has a specific capacity and contains a specific amount of water, and that’s just the way it is.

In speaking of the end times, Jesus quotes from scripture that predicts disasters to come. If it ended there, though, it would just be depressing.

Instead, he offers hope of much greater things being on the other side of those crises. Evil is having it’s day, but God is coming back!