The Good News Challenge

While speaking at a retreat recently, I went to the fitness center to use the treadmill, where a cable news channel was playing. The news wasn't good. I don't mean only that bad things were happening, but that in those moments, I wasn't being shaped to be a person of the good news. The cable news writers certainly had my formation in mind, but it wasn't toward the profoundly good news that all things are being made new in Jesus. It started to dawn on me how formative that kind of thing is, and it made me wonder about taking some intentional time in Lent to turn off cable news and fill that time with the good news of the gospel instead. It made me wonder what might happen.

Here's the challenge: turn off cable news from Ash Wednesday until Easter, replace that time with reading one of the gospels, and let's see what happens. I've dropped a reading plan below for each of the gospels. Take your pick, and if you feel so inclined, I'd love to hear how it's going along the way.

Reading Plans:

Matthew	Mark	Luke	John
Ash Wednesday – Feb 18 Matthew 1–2 Feb 19 Matthew 3–4 Feb 20 Matthew 5–6 Feb 21 Matthew 7–8 Feb 22 Matthew 9–10 Feb 23 Matthew 11–12 Feb 24 Matthew 13–14 Feb 25 Matthew 15–16 Feb 26 Matthew 17–18 Feb 27 Matthew 19–20 Feb 28 Matthew 21–22 Mar 1 Matthew 23–24 Mar 2 Matthew 25–26 Mar 3 Matthew 27–28	Mar 4 Mark 1–2 Mar 5 Mark 3–4 Mar 6 Mark 5–6 Mar 7 Mark 7–8 Mar 8 Mark 9–10 Mar 9 Mark 11–12 Mar 10 Mark 13–14 Mar 11 Mark 15–16	Mar 12 Luke 1–2 Mar 13 Luke 3–4 Mar 14 Luke 5–6 Mar 15 Luke 7–8 Mar 16 Luke 9–10 Mar 17 Luke 11–12 Mar 18 Luke 13–14 Mar 19 Luke 15–16 Mar 20 Luke 17–18 Mar 21 Luke 19–20 Mar 22 Luke 21–22 Mar 23 Luke 23–24	Mar 24 John 1–2 Mar 25 John 3–4 Mar 26 John 5–6 Mar 27 John 7–8 Mar 28 John 9–10 Mar 29 (Palm Sunday) John 11–12 Mar 30 John 13 Mar 31 John 14–15 Apr 1 John 16–17 Apr 2 (Maundy Thursday) John 18–19 Apr 3 (Good Friday) John 20–21

Better News Than Silent Night: The Goodness of Christmas in Real Life

(Post adapted from a sermon at The Village Church you can watch here.)

Here is my confession: I like a clean Christmas. Throughout my life, I’ve been shaped to want a Christmas that looks like every Hallmark card I see on the store shelves and sounds like the Christmas songs I’ve sung since childhood. These days, my desire is manifesting as the longing for an Instagram-worthy holiday, where nothing is out of place and everything looks flawless.

Somewhere along the way, I think that I’ve come to associate Christmas with a time when hard stuff is supposed to stop, or at least can be ignored for a few days. That way, nothing intrudes on a picture-perfect holiday, and peace arrives because of a lack of disruption. I’ve been wondering, though, if those expectations and hopes I have for Christmas have muted the goodness of the news that arrives in Christmas.

Here's how Luke tells it:

Now in that same region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger (Luke 2:8-12).

Part of my problem is that I can’t read this passage without the Charlie Brown music playing in my imagination, yet another mark of my desire for a ‘clean’ Christmas. The reality of this passage is grittier, even than Pigpen’s personal hygiene. The announcement of good news came to the shepherds right where they were, in the middle of the realities of life among sheep. It’s surprising in at least a couple ways:

1)    This wasn’t the kind of good news they were used to receiving. In the ancient world, especially in the Roman Empire (which controlled Bethlehem in those days), bits of good news would often be announced, primarily regarding military victories that were expanding the Empire. The technical term for those announcements were ‘gospels,’ and they were meant to bring gladness to the people who heard them. But for these shepherds, that news was a long way off, likely from places they’d never been before. How could that be good news for them, in the middle of their situations? The announcement of good news on the first Christmas was right in the middle of their situations, not some distant reality.

2)    Other announcements of good news were related to the birth of an emperor. The birth of Augustus, for example, was presented in the Roman world as good news for all people because he was a savior, a god among the people who would bring peace. Luke is clearly playing the announcement of Jesus’s birth off the notion that Caesar Augustus was a savior who would bring peace to all humanity. But the additional difference is that Luke is emphasizing the entrance of Jesus right into the middle of shepherd realities. Jesus won’t be a god from a distance, but God-with-us, who enters into the middle of hard, gritty reality.

This is why I’m challenged this year to let go of some of my hopes for a clean, perfect Christmas. The good news of Christmas isn’t that Jesus comes to insulate us for a few days from the hard stuff we’re enduring; it’s that Jesus has entered into the middle of gritty reality and is redeeming it.

One more note of some theological importance is needed: I’m not suggesting that Jesus enters into the middle of hard realities simply to make them disappear. That would be pressing us back into the ‘gospel’ of clean Christmas. The kind of good news that comes as part of Christ’s incarnation is that he has entered most fully into even the death-dealing realities of human life, it did its worst to him in his death, and he came out on the other side in his resurrection. The hope isn’t that we won’t endure hardship or death; the hope is that we are following Jesus through it toward resurrection. That is better news than a clean, Instagram-perfect Christmas can deliver.

If I haven’t lost you so far, I fear I may here: I’m not a huge fan of the song “Silent Night.” It’s certainly nostalgic for me, and I adore the melody, but its opening lyrics are part of the reason I think I’ve come to equate Christmas with a pause from life’s hardships, rather than the gritty redemption of them. “All is calm, all is bright…” sometimes forms in my imagination a bit of a Hallmark card. In fact, the subtle critique of Silent Night is one of the reasons I have come to love Andrew Peterson’s musical telling of the birth of Jesus in his song, “Labor of Love.” “It was not a silent night,” the song opens, “there was blood on the ground…And the stable was not clean; And the cobblestones were cold…” Maybe that’s not the image that we want hanging around our quest for a clean Christmas, but it surely offers better news than the gospel of ‘Christmas is a few days where I can act like the world isn’t broken.’ The power of the gospel of Jesus entering right into the middle of a world groaning for redemption as a woman in labor has got to be better news than, “the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” (Yes, I’ve also got some theological hang-ups with “Away in a Manger.” 19^th-century Christmas carols tended to carry some odd theological baggage.)

Lest you think I’m a grinch in theological garb, come to ruin the perfect Christmas by critiquing our culture’s most beloved traditions, let me offer a closing story about my friend Jeff. He died yesterday after a battle with ALS, and I already miss him. Most of Jeff’s life was a gritty reality. Addiction led him to homelessness, and his body bore the brunt of all of it. Jeff experienced what I can only describe as grace-filled, even miraculous redemption, and he was never quiet about it. I still smile when I think about how wonderfully disruptive he could be when he wanted to tell people about how much Jesus had changed him. Jeff is who comes to mind when I think of the shepherds. Jesus was born into the gritty reality of their circumstances, and he entered right into the middle of the brutally difficult situation Jeff was in.

Our church meets on a university campus in a building adorned with a steeple and stained glass, so when people would come to visit, I think they’d bring with them expectations of a “Silent Night” experience. What they got was Jeff the shepherd, often proclaiming aloud the good news of a God who enters into the middle of gritty reality. That’s why I think the incarnation is better news than a Hallmark movie could ever deliver. This Christmas Eve, we’ll gather and light candles and, yes, we’ll sing Silent Night. But I’m really going to miss Jeff, a shepherd who constantly reminded me just how good the news really is.

Are our gospels too small? (Or, Why Cracker Barrel is not our home)

Are our gospels too small?

I’ve been thinking a lot these days about the notion of home. A couple of well-crafted sermons and a series of encounters with the idea over the summer have had me inquiring about home as a place of nurture and belonging. The flip side of that is when we feel like we don’t have a home or our home is being taken away, we get anxious and do whatever we can to preserve our notion of home.

The fierce reaction I see around me to bits of change makes me wonder what’s really motivating us deep down. Then it hits me: we feel like we are losing our home, and who wouldn’t fight to hold on to home?

Culturally, we are in a perpetual cycle of feeling like our home is being taken away from us. There are the ubiquitous and odd cultural touchpoints, like a restaurant chain changing its logo, or shifting social roles, but there’s also a distinct sense of losing home around the church, a place that many people associate with a sense of home. “I didn’t leave the church,” I’ve heard several friends say recently, “but I do feel like the church has left me.” I can’t help but hear that statement in terms of loss, and a sense of compassion wells up when I hear it.

For millions of people, the church has represented the place of cultural and moral stability; ‘The world may be shifting all around us, but we still have this.’ That’s probably why I’ve heard so many people use the term, ‘church home’ to describe their faith community. When even that feels like it shifts, then, no wonder we fight. For every time I’ve seen someone get irrationally upset at some change to the music or carpet or service times, I’ve tried to receive that with a touch of compassion. That person feels like they are losing a bit of home.

In our anxious search for home, then, we’ll do just about anything to regain what we crave: stability, belonging, inclusion. The trouble here, as anyone who has ever moved to a new place can verify, is that when we are longing for home, we’ll do just about anything we can to find the feeling of home. We’ll even sometimes be willing to set ourselves in a place that isn’t really home, just to regain the feeling of nurture and stability.

As a theologian, I can’t help but ponder what allows a people to ‘come home’ theologically. What makes it possible for a people who might be settling, grasping, or even fighting for false homes to find their nurture and rest in their true home: the gospel of Jesus Christ?

The people of God are at home in the good news of Jesus Christ. It’s not a set of national borders or cultural trappings that give the people of God a home; it is the reality of new creation, inaugurated in Christ’s death and resurrection. Simply, our home is the reality that Christ’s death and resurrection has opened for us, a reality where death and sin have been defeated. That, as we often say, is the Gospel.

The word ‘gospel’ simply means good news. It was a word that was common in the ancient world, especially when a bit of favorable information was delivered from a far-flung part of the kingdom you might live in. A military commander, for example, might win a faraway victory and send a gospel back to a major city, proclaiming that they’ve expanded the kingdom a bit more. Sometimes, those gospels had the impact of making the lives of the people who received them materially better in some small way. They may see a few more coins in their pocket or eventually be a bit more competitive in the market. The ‘home team’ won.

Those gospels, however, are much smaller and far less consequential than the Gospel, which is the good news of Christ’s victory over sin and death, eschatologically transforming the world in which we live and opening a space for believers to live now in the future that God is bringing to fullness. The Gospel of a world being transformed through the defeat of sin and death is what the biblical writers were delivering, along with this underlying caution: don’t settle for gospels that are too small!

I do get the sense that in our longing for home, we church folk are quick to settle for gospels that are too small. When we feel like we are losing all we’ve known as home, we’ll take a culture war victory here or there and pick up the fight on the next issue, as ultimately inconsequential as it may be (I’m looking at you, Cracker Barrel controversy!). We might settle for the feeling of moral certainty, even if the moral position isn’t entirely faithful to the new creation that began in Christ’s resurrection. If we were to be honest, though, we probably know this down deep, and we know that every little victory we might celebrate around a little gospel isn’t ever going to provide the sense of home our hearts long for.

And so, a hope-filled invitation: let’s come home to the Gospel. The good news we receive in Jesus probably isn’t going to prop up every cultural hallmark of our childhood, nor does it traffic in nostalgia as a virtue. It is new creation, and new creation has a way of disrupting old creation in redemptive ways, especially when we’ve mistaken some negligible piece of old creation for home.

But there is also this: we don’t have to fear the Gospel’s disruption, because the things it will displace were never our home to begin with. Christian faith is something like looking at the disruption Christ brings and saying, ‘I trust that. I’m going to give myself to this new thing that looks like death and resurrection.’

Coming home to the Gospel of Jesus Christ will be a different kind of homecoming, to be sure, because it calls us to put to death the hope of every false home that we might be raised to new life in the true home that is ever-expanding and yet unchanging, a new creation reality where the gates are scandalously open while the crucified and resurrected Christ is on the throne I the middle of it all (Rev. 21-22). That kind of Gospel is big enough to give our lives to.