11-6-13-the-visitor

Pastor and author Frederick Buechner wrote that, “The Gospel is bad news before it is Good News.” I have come to believe that more and more. Before we can embrace the Good News of The Gospel we have to come face to face with the bad news.

We don’t have to look very far, or scratch too deep to find the bad news.

The bad news is that we live in a very confused, very broken, and very wounded world. Wherever we look, at the global, national or local arenas, we see injustice and evil in its many forms: greed, violence, idolatry and disease just to name a few. It is both systemic and personal. Many systems and institutions are infected with a poverty of ethics and justice, and they create or perpetuate injustice locally and globally. But, systems and institutions are not the root of the problem. We are. By commission or omission we also choose into greed, violence and injustice. We all stand before the forbidden and wrestle, sometimes hard and sometimes not so hard, with temptation. We have all crossed the boundary, and have failed to be the people God created us to be.

We have to come face to face with the bad news before we can embrace the Good News. The challenge is that we live in a culture that tends to ignore bad news, or capitulates to it before it gives the Good News a chance.

The Good News is that God knows the bad news and has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves. The Good News is that God loves us with a love that is too good to be true (especially when you consider the bad news), but too good to be dismissed. God has come to us in Jesus Christ and through Christ’s life, death and resurrection, God has offered us a new reality – a reality that is not defined, shaped or dependent on the bad news. Through God we have hope for today and for the future.

Through God we have the grace and strength to endure the hardships, difficulties and adversities of life. Through God the bad news can be redeemed and re-purposed into something good.

In these difficult and challenging times when the bad news keeps rolling over us, may we all embrace the Good News of God’s goodness, grace and power. May we be the bearers of the Good News at home, at work, at school and wherever we are because the bad news can be so overwhelming.

And, as always, I am proud to be with you on the journey