So Where’s the Good News?

Because I’m old and a creature of habit I still watch the evening news. After I see the stories of brutality where hundreds and thousands were tortured and killed by the Syrian dictator, or children begging for food in Gaza, or a deranged man driving his car through a Christmas market in Germany killing and maiming dozens, I’m left feeling sick to my stomach. I wonder where there might be any good news. In fairness the last minute or two of the broadcast is dedicated to a good news story. It’s always about people helping other people in ways that warm my heart. But that one minute does not take away the heaviness I feel about all the rest of the stories. So what I need, and it seems all of us need, is some really really good news.

Over 2000 years ago things were pretty bleak for most Jewish people. The Romans ruled the Jews with an iron fist and unspeakable cruelty. The Jewish elite and religious establishment had figured out it was better to "go along to get along” than to resist this power. They made themselves enablers and accomplices to the Roman Empire as they contributed to the misery of their fellow Jews.

One very cold dark night at a time of utter hopelessness the skies suddenly opened and blazed with light. An angel appeared to a motley crew of poor peasant men. These shepherds who worked the graveyard shift had the job of sitting every night in the freezing cold black inkiness of night to protect sheep that probably belonged to someone else.

This angel announced to them that she was bringing super

Good News. While their jaws were hanging open and their hearts terrified the whole sky filled with angels singing and instructing them to go to Bethlehem. In a dank cold barn smelling of manure they’d find a baby in a trough used to feed cows. We know the story. They left their sheep and rushed to Bethlehem where they found a new-born tiny pink baby boy. Jesus was among us.

Now some 2000 years later we might be asking what exactly is the Good News about all that? Certainly it is not the end of war or human suffering or cruelty. So what is it?

Well, I’ll tell you what it’s NOT.

The Good News, announced at the birth of Jesus is not world peace, or all children being fed, or the poor being protected, or governments run by benevolent leaders. It’s not a miracle cure to cancer, or winning the lottery. Even though that’s what we all might wish for, it’s not what God was promising.

For a clue we need to look at what Jesus said about Himself. Jesus told us that if we have seen Him we have also seen God. In other words, if we want to see God, we need only look at the words, and actions, and heart of Jesus. He fleshed out the heart of God for us all to see. Jesus made an invisible God visible.

So what do we see?

In reading the stories of Jesus we see a God who assumes the role of a common servant and kneels with a basin of water to wash the dirty smelly feet of His disciples. We see a God who threw off all the trappings of worldly power and rode a borrowed donkey into the power capital of Jerusalem. We see a God who saw and touched the untouchables, the lepers, the bleeding woman, the dirty little kids. We see a God who threw parties and banquets and invited everyone. We see a God who, when faced with 5000 hungry people, fed them all till they were stuffed and there were still left overs. We see a God who extended mercy to the very people who perpetrated the suffering He saw everyday. He healed a Roman officer’s child. He picked a tax collector as one of His disciples. He roasted fish and bread to welcome the disciples who had run for the hills to protect themselves when He was being crucified.

This is the face of God revealed to us by Jesus. This is a God of infinite love who sees us all. No one is ever excluded from the welcoming arms of this God. There is NEVER a shortage of mercy or grace or forgiveness. There is never a time we are not seen and loved. There is not “merit game” we must play to receive His love. And no matter what happens to us, or what we do, we cannot separate ourselves from His loving merciful embrace.

And to make that Good News even better, this God of infinite grace has promised never to leave us or to stop loving us.

Being human is a very hard assignment and we cannot get through life without suffering. But we can journey through this difficult experience with the surety that we are seen, we are loved, and we are accompanied by this everlasting loving God.

When I was 12 years old the Russians had installed nuclear war heads in Cuba and were threatening to send them our way. It was a Sunday morning and my family had gone to church. I was home alone because I had the flu. I sat there in my bed terrified that it could all happen while I was all alone. Then this song I had sung in church came to me.

“Under His wings I am safely abiding. Though the night deepens and tempests are wild. Still I can trust Him, I know He will keep me. He is my Father and I am His child.

Under His wings, under His wings, who from His love can sever?

Under His wings my soul shall abide. Safely abide forever.”

And there, my friends is the Good News. We belong to a loving God, full of mercy and kindness. This God holds us, and comforts us, and never, under any circumstances, will leave us. We are held in the heart of this Magnificent Lover forever.

So, Merry Christmas to you all. And may this season find you resting in the very very Good News that God is with you and will never leave you or stop loving you.