James Chastek has salutary post on the desire for a realised eschatology on earth. The Good News is not tempered by the "Bad News" but it does provide a backdrop for its interpretation and can often be forgotten when it does not immediately make its presence felt.
"This bad news is so awful that the Apostle’s hadn’t learned to accept it even after they came to accept the Resurrection. Literally, the last thing the Apostles ask Christ before the ascension is when he will return to set up his Messianic kingdom in Israel. One wonders if the correct answer to the question would have sent some of the Apostles running, since Christ would have had to say that he would not return for over twenty centuries, that Israel would continue under Roman domination for as long as Rome existed, that the last tribes would be scattered and see Jerusalem left in ruins, and that their descendants would see the temple of an alien religion standing on the temple mount for over a thousand years."
It is worth remembering the historical realities of continuing persecution, injustice and oppression that afflict the people of the Gospel, and indeed those who have not heard it or reject it.
I am reminded of the quote by J.R.R. Tolkien:
“I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a ‘long defeat’ — though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.”
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