It's GOOD NEWS, damn it!
Standing out at the bus stop in the evening on a cold winter day, I caught a glimpse of the sunset just behind the building in front of me. The bus was not in sight, so I walked hurriedly up the sidewalk away to catch a glimpse of the sun setting. It was a ball of red and orange, sinking behind the horizon covered with a white blanket of snow, reflecting pink off the fluffy white snow clouds above. It filled me with peace on the cold, still, winter evening.
And it occurred to me. This is how the Gospel is supposed to be. Once you catch a whiff of the real thing, you will step out of life for a minute and walk towards it. The more you do this, the brighter it glows and the more inviting and vibrant it seems. It warms your life from the inside with a beauty so wild and so subversive, you cannot contain it within yourself, and you exude it from your person. And so others catch a glimpse.
The Gospel is the proclamation of REDEMPTION preached by Jesus and his apostles. The word Gospel literally means “good news.” It is a message of hope, preached to a downtrodden minority of the Jewish sacrificial system: those who could not keep up with the burdens of sacrifice and outward signs of piety required by the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’s day. Jesus said, “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23). The redemption in the message is God’s ability to bring good out of bad. For instance, he has redeemed my illness by turning it into a platform to help other people suffering with similar conditions. Redemption literally turns the bad situations of life into bright shining rays of hope for all people. It turns things seen as weaknesses (in men’s eyes), to strengths (in God’s eyes). And this good news is subversive. It was targeted to the disenfranchised, lower echelon, un-churched “sinners” of the Jewish system. Later it came to the outsiders: first to women, then the Samaritans who were Jewish half-breeds - hated by the Jews, and later to the frowned-upon gentiles who were excluded from the Jewish religion. And then on to the known world: to the disenfranchised and downtrodden throughout the Earth.
Any time the gospel is codified and adopted by the powers in control, it becomes perverted. And anytime it is used to keep people outside of the kingdom, it is antithetical to Jesus’ vision.
We see this in the story of Christianity after the 4th century - in the centuries after it was implemented as the state religion by Constantine. As soon as it was adopted by those in power, it was abused and misused. The original conversion may have been genuine, but implemented as a system of control, it was soon antithetical to the teachings of Jesus because it was used to oppress. Oppressing and excluding the downtrodden and walling God off from them by placing obstacles in their way is the opposite of Jesus’s path. Back full circle to the Pharisees. And we see, by the rise and (thankfully) the quick fall of the well-intentioned, but flawed religious right in American politics, that Christianity cannot be used by those in power to exert their will over others. It is a corruption of all that Jesus stood for.
No, the Gospel is good news. It is good news for women, good news for minorities, good news for creation, good news for Gay people, good news for those suffering from illness, depression, schizophrenia, AIDS, for those down on their luck, for those stuck in addiction, for those stuck in their lives. Good news for those who know there is something more to life. Good news for oppressed Muslims, good news for the Dalit in India, good news for pretty much the entire continent of Africa, and good news for the secret persecuted house churches in China. It says you can be whole, you can be content with what you have, and God can give you wisdom and overcome your flaws and addictions and failings and human limitations - when you join your will with his and take on his way of life. And then you can have a hand in changing the world from isolation to community, from desolation to life, from disinterest and self-loathing to love. Love of yourself, love for others, and love for God’s beautiful, perfect creation.
It is burning in pockets the world over. “Come and see,” as Jesus was fond of saying. If you catch a glimpse of the real thing, you will never be the same.
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