"Good" News [Advent 3C]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Luke 3:7-18
“Good” News
We Christians have a complicated
relationship with the word “good.” The best example is probably “Good Friday” - the day
on which we commemorate the death of our Savior. To many, and understandably
so, the crucifixion hardly seems “good.”
Today's gospel is, perhaps, another
strong example. In it we find John at
the River Jordan surrounded by an interested crowd. Now, John the Baptist is an intense person,
clearly. I mean, the people he insults
in today's Gospel are not his opponents; these are the people who actually like
him. Here and elsewhere in the Gospels,
he seems like a pretty serious guy; he is entirely committed to his message – a message
of repentance and warning. He uses
rather stark images and examples. There
is talk of axes cutting and winnowing forks clearing – and a lot
of talk about fire, a lot. Scary news,
sure, but not exactly what one might typically describe as “good” news.
And yet, there it is, at the end of
our Gospel reading today, after all of John's fiery rhetoric, Luke writes: “So, with
many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people.” We Christians have a complicated relationship
with the word “good.”
I recently read a story about a
pancreatic cancer survivor named Russ.
When he was diagnosed, his doctors gave him a 2% chance of living just
three more years. He has since beaten the odds. Thirteen years later he is still
alive. But his good news was complicated.
His good news was a small chance of survival. The good news was that
with a course of really terrible treatment he might live a while longer. That
was his good news. And his fight to survive, while successful, has been, in
many ways, brutal – multiple
surgeries, multiple rounds of chemo and radiation. He says there were many
times he wanted to give up.
But he didn't. As painful as life was, Russ was forever
changed for the better. In a way his
crisis led to his salvation. He says
now, “If I can
help just one person, it makes it all worthwhile. I became a survivor the day I had surgery,
meaning I had another day to live. But you have to live it with a purpose, so I
try to go out there and help as many people as I can.”
And so he works with other people
who are diagnosed with cancer. He cares
for them and supports them in their struggle to survive. He says, “My advice
for people is to try to embrace their new normal life. You’re not
going to go back to the way your life was. Some things are definitely going to
change. If you accept that, you’ll be so
much more comfortable. I thoroughly enjoy my life.”[1]
Russ now has a complicated
relationship with the word “good.” He enjoys his life. But that doesn't mean his life has been comfy
or easy – anything
but, in fact. The good in his life
emerged from a crucible of pain and loss and change. I doubt this is the life Russ dreamed of as a
young man. But his bad news, became good
news – not just
for him, but for those many lives he has touched by his love and care and
testimony.
John's good news was not easy. I mean, seriously, it begins with an
invective. And ends with the threat of
unquenchable fire. But seldom is good
easy. It is a fascinating mystery of
human existence that most of the best things in life are born of pain and
struggle, of sacrifice and loss – babies, for example.
John's good news today is similar
to Russ' good news. Joel Green
summarizes thus: “[W]hile the
situation facing this 'brood of vipers' is severe, it is not without hope, for
God can do the impossible and bring forth life from the lifeless.”[2] The ax is at the root but there is still
hope.
And so the desperate people in the
crowd, facing existential disaster, spiritual death and eschatological
judgment, ask the question that always follows a grave diagnosis: “What should
we do?”
At first glance, John's answer is,
I think, surprising. David Lose goes so
far as to suggest that “John's
ethical exhortation [which he summarizes as 'be honest, be kind, and work
hard'] seems rather mild, even a bit lame.”[3] There is no esoteric secret. There is no Gnostic knowledge. There is no mystery to unravel. Everything is very grounded and, really, just
ordinary.
Be honest. Be kind.
Work hard.
It seems like it should all be less
accessible: salvation, the kingdom of God. It seems like there should be a code
to crack or an ancient prayer to pray or a special chant tone that when hit
perfectly unlocks the doors of some far away paradise.
But salvation is not far away at
all. It starts right here. It begins in the most ordinary of places – in our
neighborhoods, at our workplaces, amongst the people with whom we share our
lives. And perhaps that should not surprise us. We worship a God who was born
as an ordinary person, into an ordinary family, who lived amongst ordinary
people – and loved
those ordinary people with an extraordinary love, a love so extraordinary it
culminated in Good Friday.
That is really good news. The news is so good in fact that it disrupts
our lives. The news is so good that we
have no choice but to respond. We are
expected to embody the good news in such a profound way that it changes our
lives and changes the lives of all who happen to be seated in our splash
zone. We not only experience the good
news, we become a living proclamation – in our words and by our
deeds. This good news requires us to
live our lives, as Lose says, “like [the
kingdom of God is] here, like we believe it’s really coming, like we think it
actually matters.”[4]
And so for John's crowd that meant
tangible actions in a tangible world of tangible people. It meant giving stuff away. It meant leaving the dirty money on the
table. It meant treating the poor with
dignity. It meant acting ethically in
unethical situations. For some it
probably meant quitting good jobs and even falling into poverty. It turns out John's good news is as
challenging and difficult as it is shockingly grounded. Salvation is not off in some distant place
and time. The people were charged with
introducing God's salvation into the most ordinary tasks and relationships of
their lives.
The good news is: God cares not
just about our eternal souls, but also our ordinary lives. God is not hidden in some far away heaven,
but is as close as our skin. God's
kingdom is not some spiritual pipe dream, but is breaking into our reality as
we speak. God cares about how we live
our lives and about how we treat each other.
God cares about you. And your neighbor.
And your co-worker. And the
person you always try to avoid during the Peace. And God cares about the Presidential
candidate that you think is a disgrace.
And God even cares about your worst enemy. And God expects you to care about all of
those people too.
And, yes, that can be pretty hard
sometimes. But that is the good news:
God cares. John's message was good news. It was good news to that brood of
vipers; to the ones in the crowd with two coats and to those with no coats; to
the tax collectors and those they were planning to squeeze; to the soldiers and
to the powerless people they had threatened.
God cared about every person in that crowd. God cares about every person in this
world. God cares so much that God wants
something better than the greed and violence and fear that so often define our
human relationships and rule our world.
God loves the world so much that God wants us to be better – to be
kinder, to be more honest, to work harder to spread the love of Jesus. To live like the kingdom of God is really
coming. Because it is. And that's good news.
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