Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: Bearers of Good News

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Perspective: Bearers of Good News

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Bearers of Good News

My peace is the legacy I leave to you. I don't give gifts like those of this world. Do not let your heart be troubled or fearful.

John 14:27 (The Voice)

Save us from weak resignation

To the evils we deplore

Let the search for Thy salvation

Be our glory evermore

From "God of Grace and God of Glory"
by Harry Emerson Fosdick

Toward the end of St. Paul's third missionary journey, Paul and his traveling companions spent a week in the city of Troas on their way back to Jerusalem. During their last evening there, Paul wanted to make the most of his remaining time in the city, so he spent the night in a room on the third floor of a house, talking with the people who were gathered there. Everyone was engrossed in what Paul was saying that night - everyone with the exception of one young man named Eutychus who happened to be sitting on a window sill. As Paul went on an on, the young man drifted off to sleep, fell out of the window to the ground below, and was killed on impact.

Paul ran down to the ground and miraculously brought the young man back to life.¹

I feel that, in this morbidly humorous story about a boy who was literally bored to death and then brought back to life, there is a message or at least a question for us Christians. The Bible tells us absolutely nothing about what Paul was discussing with his companions that evening. Maybe he was discussing theology, or doctrine, or the types of things we would find in the various letters of his that are collected in the New Testament. All we know is that Paul made a singular announcement that night: "Don't be alarmed. He's alive!"²

This story makes me wonder what kind of message we Christians are offering the world around us. Are we who are called to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ with us throughout the world - we who are called to be bearers of Good News - announcing new life? Or are we just putting people to sleep?

One thing that totally irks me about Christians is the fact that so many of us are fixated on what might happen to us when we die, while it seems that the whole world is going to hell all around us. Is the promise of "pie in the sky when we die" really all we have to offer the hurting people in our midst? Is our "good news" so stale and irrelevant that we have to make up a whole bunch of bad news just to make it seem good? Bad news is not in short supply in the world: if we want bad news, we'll find plenty of it by turning on the nightly news or by checking our social media feeds. We don't need any more bad news: what we need is some news that is actually good.

Just a few days ago, in my own state, nine people who were gathered together with others for a Bible study were murdered in cold blood because of the color of their skin.³ One day later, people in my own city who were gathered for vigil for those who were killed had to evacuate because of a bomb threat.⁴ If the last couple of years has taught us anything it has taught us that systemic demons of oppression like racism are still wreaking havoc in the world. What the world needs is the good news that the way things are is not the way things have to be.

Jesus said that, while others have come "only to steal and kill and destroy," He has come into the world "that [we] may have life and have it abundantly."⁵ This, the promise of new and abundant life here and now, is, in my opinion, good news. The Hebrew word Shalom is typically understood to mean "peace," but the term also connotes a sense of wholeness and wellness. It is no wonder that the Jewish people use it as a greeting, for the hope of wholeness and wellness in a sick, broken world is indeed good news.⁶

What are we doing? Are we carrying this message of new and abundant life with us wherever we go? Are we living as though it is actually real? Or is it all just a bunch of empty words? Are we actually living out the reality of the Kingdom of God here on Earth as it is in Heaven? May we all seek to be people who announce the good news of new life and Shalom. Even more so, may we seek to be people who actually live it out.

Notes: