Are things ever actually as bad as they seem? Or are things really much worse than we ever imagined? As Christians we have never been promised that life will be smooth and easy. What we have been promised is the assurance of God's presence in our lives through good times and bad, in prosperity and poverty, in our strength and in our weakness.

"Good news/bad news" jokes are a common humorous form used to reveal both sides of life's little complexities. Contrary to the traditional joke form, however, columnist L.M. Boyd reports that 63% of people prefer to hear bad news first when they are given "good news/bad news." Boyd claims this preference stems from our childhood training when we were told we must first eat all our broccoli before we could have our chocolate cake.

The sixth chapter of Isaiah starts out like one of these inverted good news/bad news jokes: "In the year King Uzziah died" (the bad news) "I saw the Lord" (the good news). The Church today finds itself as the punch line of yet another good news/bad news joke. The good news for the Church is that more and more people are embarking on a spiritual search for experienced meaning in their lives. There is an increasing recognition that the soul needs more than a new Miata and a second home to ease its longings. The bad news is that this "great awakening" of spiritual energy is taking place primarily outside the Church. In the grand old church tradition people are flocking to the potluck of spiritual experiences now available. As the Church desperately tries to compete with these spiritual interlopers, it finds itself either trying to tack Christian window dressing onto some pretty strange windows to the soul, or screaming "anti-Christ" at every slightly spacey concept that floats by. Confused by its competition, the Church is behaving like a yoyo manipulated by all sorts of jerks. One moment it tends to Pollyannacize the present, the next it Armageddonizes the moment.

There is much good news for us to celebrate in the waning days of the second millennium. The good news is we are living in a time of revolutionary democratic change throughout the world. Who could have predicted the perestroika, glasnost, and multiparty elections in the Soviet Union? Who could have predicted some half dozen nations in Eastern Europe would make democracy a reality? Who could have predicted that The Wall would come down, and Germany would become one nation again? Who could have predicted massive pro-democracy demonstrations in China's Tiananmen Square? Who could have predicted free elections in Nicaragua, or the movements toward freedom in Central and South America? Who could have predicted the freeing of Nelson Mandela in South Africa?

Who could have predicted the Soviet Union recanting its official party line on atheism and its return of old churches to their long clandestine congregations?

There is also much bad news to ponder and pray about as this century draws to a close. The bad news is that with the rebirth of nations comes the old bogeyman of ideological nationalism. Who could have predicted that from Iraq to Lebanon to Israel the Middle East would continue to be a churning caldron of war and hate? Who could have predicted the renewed use of chemical warfare on unarmed Kurdish civilians? Who could have predicted America would find itself between Iraq and a hard place? Who could have predicted the slaughter of innocents in Liberia? Who could have predicted that U.S. troops could finally be pulled out of NATO only to have them re-deployed in Saudi Arabia?

Which perspective on the world is the right one? Is this the best of times or the worst of times? Should we be patting ourselves on the back or ducking for cover? The Church came into being as a temporary shelter erected between the "not yet" of the Kingdom of God and the "already is" of Christ's resurrection and ascension. Every age is "equidistant from eternity" in terms of its moral status. A recent New Yorker cartoon depicted one Puritan saying to another as they stepped off the Mayflower: "My immediate desire is religious freedom, but my long-range goal is to get into real estate."

If any people should be able to thrive in the good news/bad news days of this in-between world, it should be Christians. Our attitudes and actions must reflect this dual nature of the Church. But we must exercise the gift of discernment. For all apparently good news is not necessarily good. All that is labeled bad news is not particularly bad. Christians reading the "signs of the times" should not be afraid of stepping out of line and calling conventional judgments of good and bad "wrong" if they see injustice.