The Best Year

2024 is about to begin.

Dec 30, 2023

silhouette of mountains under cloudy sky during daytime — Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

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2024. Will it be the worst year ever? Or maybe the best?

Those of us who are old enough remember when Prince sang -

… I was dreamin' when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin'
Could've sworn it was judgment day
… The sky was all purple
There were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' to run from the destruction
You know I didn't even care
… 'Cause they say two thousand zero zero
Party over, oops out of time
So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999
- Prince Rogers Nelson - 1999 lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

That was 1984 (another year carrying potential foreboding) and 1999 seemed a long way away. We were already beginning to fret about Y2K - the turn of the millennium would bring societal destruction wrought by the anger of the Technology God. It turned out that two thousand zero zero was not “party over, oops out of time” (hereafter denoted POOOOT).

But now it is 2024, or, depending on when you read this, almost. And some fret that we finally draw near to POOOOT. If you believe that there will be a POOOOT, we must be drawing nearer to it, I suppose. In fact, the year 2020 was claimed by many as the worst year - pandemic, racial unrest, violence - to be alive. But that turned out not to be POOOOT, in fact, many earlier candidates have come and gone. If one looks for a scientific answer to the question, “Is this the worst year ever?” - that answer is no. It turns out 536 is the scientifically determined winner of the worst year to be alive prize (WYTBA):

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year," says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.
A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.
- Ann Gibbons, Science, November 2018

To review, we had a volcanic eruption sufficient to darken the sky for over a year and drop dust from the sky on a people many thousands of miles away who had no way of knowing why the sky was dark or dust was dropping. Failed crops, cold, snow in summer, starvation for years all over the world … followed by bubonic plague that killed up to half the population of the eastern Roman Empire - precipitating its collapse. That probably seemed like POOOOT to most people.

Not that things are great now. We have two wars, political instability, an uncertain climate future, cultural conflict, racism, anti-semitism, and a lot of other isms. While our current troubles are certainly real, history can help us put things in a proper context. Probably, 2024 won’t be the worst year ever. In fact, some see less worldwide poverty and more effective disease treatment and more productive agriculture and advancing technology to give us better medicine, more food, and cleaner energy. Steven Pinker advanced this very case in his book Enlightenment Now - we are getting better and smarter, leading to all sorts of advances - although optimism might be tempered since this book was released in early 2019.

the sun is setting over the mountains in the distance — Photo by louwel nicolas on Unsplash

Tempered optimism, perhaps. But it isn’t 536. And even 536 wasn’t POOOOT. Do we even have a context for something like 536 and the years that followed? We learn that the world wide economy did not recover until around the year 640. That is a hundred years of badness. I don’t think I can imagine what life in those times was like. And I’m not sure 640 was anything to celebrate by our standards. Our expectations of “best” and “worst” are almost entirely circumstantial - in fact, the circumstances of the moment. We may look back, with the passing of even a year or two and a bit more context to see what we thought was the “worst year ever” (not quite POOOOT, but bad) - was a year of growth. That growth might be growth in dependence on God and on a community, dependence forced by difficult circumstances, uncomfortable in the moment - the necessary preparation of the soil for the sprouting of blessing. This kind of blessing probably only comes in the context of difficult circumstances.

And so, back to the question at hand. 2024. What kind of year will it be?

How to even answer such a question? We can try to manage the circumstances of course, we have agency, we make choices - we save, try to be healthy, etc. That is preparing for a range of possible circumstances - wise, but it doesn’t answer our question. To a significant degree, the answer to the question does not lie in circumstances. Others have noted before me that it is not the circumstances but our response to them that sets our course. True. But our responses are not random. What kind of year will 2024 be? Or what will my responses to the circumstances 2024 brings be? Part of the answer to this question relates to how I see 2024 in the context of this larger story I am in.

Many evangelical Christians have a preoccupation with the end times, as we call them, that has waxed and waned a bit, but remained fairly constant over the past few decades. I don’t criticize those learning about and understanding what the Bible says about the future - and about, as even Prince called it, judgment day. In fact, Jesus talks about His return more often than we might first guess. But much of what Jesus says about the future is less about the times and the signs (though that is there as well), it is about our response to the story of redemption He has put us in.

Just before a parable about a pharisee and a tax-collector, or publican, that I have referred to before - a parable about humility, faith, and grace being the preferred response over pride and a heightened view of our own moral standing - and a parable about a woman petitioning an unjust judge for justice - a parable about faith shown through persistence and dependence in bad circumstances - lies a sentence from Jesus that seems at first glance to be disconnected from both stories.

However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Luke 18:8

When the Son of Man comes, when this part of the story we are in draws to a close (if we are still living and not awaiting the end of this part of the story from another place or perspective), will he find faith on the earth? This is the most consistent of the teachings of Jesus that are related to his return. The parable of the talents, the parable of the vineyard, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, and other teachings ask this same question in different ways - when the owner or king returns, where will be our faith? What faith will we be demonstrating in our sacrifice, our service, our generosity, our love, and the fruit of the Spirit in our lives?

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The time for faithful response to our story, enabled by grace with the perspective of humility and dependence, will be over. Of course, we don’t know when that is. In some sense, it will be POOOOT. That said, I don’t really think, fun as it is to type and say, that POOOOT is the correct eschatological terminology (no offense Prince). Partying until then, in the way Prince seems to recommend, probably isn’t what Jesus had in mind. We may want to be distracted from the circumstances of the times, even if it isn’t 536 - or even 640. But, whatever the circumstances, we are called to choose faithfulness.

So here it is - 2024 - let’s get started or let’s keep going. Also, you can choose this in March if things go off the rails, as many do. And in May. And next year. Your whole life, in a sense, is this choosing. So maybe just start choosing. Or start being conscious that these are choices and that you are making them.

‘What kind of year will it be?’ becomes ‘what will I take for granted?’ What will I enjoy? What will I learn? Who will I love? Who will I forgive? What will my level of curiosity be toward the world? How will I worship? While we are dependent on God’s Spirit for spiritual growth and transformation, we are called to live out answers to these questions as acts of faith - as faithful responses to our story. Most of these things, I suppose all of them to some degree, are things I choose.

This is the part, here at the end, where I could say that we should make 2024 the best year ever. But the best year ever, like the best vacation ever and the best whatever else ever, is probably a formulation that is too bound up in the management of our circumstances. 2024 might be a hard year. Let’s encourage each other - usually in and through the spiritual communities in which He has placed us - toward a faithful year.

One day, when POOOOT has come and gone, what matters will be our faith and our faithful living. Also, there will be a different sort of party, one in which He is the bridegroom and we are the bride.