What Happened to Us?

There are days when opening the morning news feels a bit like opening the refrigerator and discovering that something has gone spectacularly bad while you weren't paying attention.

One headline tells of another war. Another reports a senseless act of violence. Somewhere, someone has been "cancelled" before breakfast. Families stop speaking over politics. Lifelong friendships dissolve over a Facebook post. Strangers exchange insults with such enthusiasm that one wonders if kindness has quietly moved to another planet.

It leaves many thoughtful people asking a simple question.

What on earth has happened to us?

Why do intelligent people make foolish decisions? Why do loving people wound those they love most? Why do we have so much difficulty just hearing another person? Why can a species capable of composing Mozart, discovering penicillin, painting the Sistine Chapel, and sending telescopes beyond Pluto also invent concentration camps, internet trolls, and missiles?

Because this is quite a range ... quite a gap between where we are and where we want to be.

There may be different ways of understanding this. But since the Bible has survived for thousands of years, perhaps it deserves at least a hearing.

And what we discover is rather surprising. The Bible does not begin by blaming politicians, social media, education, wealth, poverty, capitalism, socialism, or whichever group happens to be irritating us this week. Instead, it quietly points its finger somewhere much closer to home.

It points at the human heart. Our own hearts, to be precise. The hearts in each of us.

That is not the answer most of us hope for. Human beings have always preferred explanations that begin with them rather than us. We are remarkably gifted at diagnosing the faults of complete strangers while remaining blissfully optimistic about our own performance. Jesus noticed this tendency long before psychologists gave it impressive names. With His characteristic humour, He asked why we are so fascinated by the tiny speck in someone else's eye while somehow overlooking the rather substantial plank sticking out of our own (Matthew 7:3–5).

It is one of those images that is almost impossible not to smile at. Picture someone earnestly offering eye surgery with a log jutting out of their own eye. The point, of course, is that self-deception comes naturally. And the heart of this whole matter ... well, yes, it is the heart.

Jeremiah had already written centuries earlier,

"The heart is deceitful above all things..."

That is a startling claim. Not that some hearts are deceptive.

Not just that especially wicked people deceive themselves. But our hearts, our very own hearts, are perfectly capable of convincing us that our impatience is righteous, our gossip is "sharing concerns," and our temper is simply the result of everyone else being astonishingly annoying.

The Bible possesses an uncanny understanding of human nature. Perhaps that is why it always feels so current. We often imagine that modern society has invented entirely new problems. The internet certainly gives old sins exciting new delivery systems, but the sins themselves are ancient. Cain murdered Abel long before there were assault rifles. Joseph's brothers cancelled him without the benefit of social media. King David's family would have provided enough material for several seasons of prestige television. And it has!

The scenery changes. But human nature and our hearts that support this nature stubbornly refuse to do so.

Jesus took the discussion even deeper.

People wanted Him to identify the real villains of society. Instead, He said that murders, lies, greed, slander, envy, and every other form of evil begin in the heart (Matthew 15:19).

That is both unsettling and strangely hopeful.

Unsettling because it means evil is not merely "out there." Hopeful because if the disease lies within us, then perhaps healing can begin there too.

One of the most remarkable observations about our age is that we have never known so much and yet often seem no wiser. We carry in our pockets more information than entire universities possessed a century ago. Within seconds we can discover the population of Iceland, the life cycle of octopuses, or whether tomatoes are technically fruit.

And yet we still struggle with forgiving our brother-in-law.

Knowledge, wonderful as it is, has never guaranteed wisdom. The Bible never expected it would. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy that difficult times would come when people became lovers of themselves, proud, ungrateful, unforgiving, abusive. (2 Timothy 3:1–5).

Scrolling through the comments section beneath a controversial news article, makes us wonder how an ancient letter could be so apt.

And Jesus offered another haunting insight.

"Because lawlessness will increase," He said, "the love of many will grow cold."

Perhaps one reason our age feels so weary is that we have confused constant outrage with moral courage. Outrage has become one of our favourite hobbies. It requires remarkably little effort to be angry. Love, on the other hand, asks much more of us. It requires patience when we would rather be sarcastic, forgiveness when we would rather keep score, humility when we would rather win the argument. It is so easy to let our love grow cold.

So no wonder Jesus spoke so much about love.

He understood that civilizations do not collapse merely because bad people become worse. They begin to unravel when ordinary people stop practising ordinary goodness. When they lose touch with who they are; i.e. made in the image of God.

There is another reason the Bible continues to surprise thoughtful readers. It never allows us to despair. It tells the truth about humanity with almost uncomfortable honesty, but it refuses to conclude that we are beyond hope.

The central claim of Christianity is not that people should simply try harder; change systems or leaders. History has conducted that experiment for several thousand years with rather mixed, and sometimes horrific, results.

Instead, Christianity claims that God entered history in the person of Jesus Christ to begin changing people from the inside out. The strategy seems almost absurdly small. It doesn't rest on 'taking over the empire", 'silencing your enemies', or even 'winning every debate'.

It requires us to simply become the kind of person who forgives.

Who tells the truth to yourself.

Who serves quietly.

Who loves generously.

Who refuses to return hatred for hatred.

Who blesses those who curse us.

Who looks to God for guidance.

It is difficult to imagine a less fashionable strategy. And yet it has outlived every empire that mocked it. Perhaps that is the greatest surprise of all. The Roman Empire is gone. The old Soviet Union is gone. Countless ideologies have risen with great confidence, announced that they possessed the final answer to humanity's problems, and quietly taken their place in history books, failures.

Meanwhile, the words of a carpenter from Nazareth continue to unsettle, comfort, challenge, and transform people in every culture on earth. He never promised that the world would become easy. In fact, He said quite the opposite.

"In this world you will have trouble."

It is a promise that has proof everywhere.

But He immediately followed it with another. "Take heart; I have overcome the world."

Therein, perhaps, lies the distinctive hope of Christianity. It is not optimistic because human beings are getting better every century. History makes that difficult to maintain.

It is hopeful because God has not abandoned His creation.

The Bible ends, not with civilization collapsing into permanent darkness, but with restoration. It speaks of justice without revenge, peace without fear, and a day when tears themselves become unnecessary.

That promise does not encourage us to escape the world.

It invites us to become the kind of people who give the world small glimpses of what it could yet become. Perhaps that is where change has always begun. For we don't need louder arguments, cleverer politicians, or even perfect solutions.

But one heart at a time, we can transform. This is the revolution Jesus proposed, not the overthrow of governments, but the transformation of ordinary people.

Two thousand years later, that still sounds impossibly idealistic. Until you meet someone whose life has truly been changed. Then it begins to sound like the most practical idea the world has ever known.