Sermon for Advent II, December 10th, 2017
Readings:
In 1983 Canadian singer Anne Murray recorded a song called “A Little Good News.” You may remember the song, it topped the charts for several weeks and it even won a Grammy. I have to admit that I have a hard time listening to this song without getting a bit tearful. The song begins with the following verse:
I rolled out this morning…kids had the morning news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
Some senator was squawking about the bad economy
It’s gonna get worse you see we need a change in policyThere’s a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story’s one more than I can stand
Just once, how I’d like to see the headline say
Not much to print today can’t find nothing bad to say
Because…
Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD’d, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger…nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today
That song tugs on my heart so much, because even though it is well over 30 years since it was written, it is just as relevant now as it was then, maybe even more so. I’m not sure what Bryant Gumble is doing these days, but otherwise the song could have been written yesterday. We live in a world of constant news. Every minute of the day we have this constant onslaught of people telling us what is wrong with the world. Fighting, wars, scandals, abusive men, politicians lying, murders, natural disasters…it never stops. It is overwhelming, and if you feel that you have just heard one more sad story than you can stand, then know that you are not alone. People have been feeling that way for a long time.
When we find the news overwhelming, I think it is worthwhile to take a step back, look at history and recognize how little of the news we are hearing is actually new. Democrats and Republicans are blaming each other for what is wrong with the country. That’s not news. A politician got caught having an affair or telling a lie. That’s not news. There is racism in this world. Not news. A bunch of influential men are being called out for abusing their power to make sexual advances…call it sinful, call it shameful, and by all means call for an end to it, but don’t call it news. It’s not news. There is nothing new about sin. There is nothing new about hatred, or murder or war or corruption. These things are old, old news. The brokenness of our world is old news and we are not the first people to find it overwhelming.
Anne Murray was singing 30 years ago, but she just as easily could have been singing 100, 200 or even 2000 years ago. Read some of the Psalms sometime and you will see that people have been singing about the brokenness of the world for a very long time. And like Anne, people have been hoping for something different. Despite the fact that bad news sells, deep in our hearts we long for good news.
When people hear the word “Gospel” they are usually inclined to think of one of two things: a type of church music, or a book about the life of Jesus. When we think about “the gospels” we think of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the stories about Jesus and the collections of his teachings that we read with great ceremony in church every week. They are the beginning of the New Testament in our bibles and they are the bedrock of our lives as Christians. But the word “Gospel” doesn’t mean “book” or “writings,” the word “gospel” means “good news.”
Our gospel reading this morning is Mark 1, verse 1: “The beginning of the Good News, of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” This isn’t just a story, this is news. Good news. This isn’t a chronicle of everything bad that is happening in the world, that is old news. The presence of evil in the world isn’t really news at all, but this story that Mark wants to tell you is news, and it is good news.
But unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark’s story doesn’t begin in a manger. Mark’s story begins in a river, the Jordan river. The gospels of Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, but the gospel of Mark, which we think was the first gospel written, begins with John the Baptist standing in the Jordan river preaching about repentance and forgiveness. Why were all those people thronging to hear what this man John had to say? Mark tells us that people from all the countryside and all Jerusalem went out to hear him. Why were they so eager to jump in the water? Was it because John told them that they were sinners or was it because they already knew they were sinners and John was offering them hope of something new?
I wasn’t there, but I think those people gathered on the shores of the Jordan listening to John preach were just as overwhelmed by their world as we are with ours. Maybe they didn’t have 24 hour news, but they had plenty of oppression, murder, violence, corruption and well…sin. Sin was old news to them, just as it is to us. John’s primary message was not that humans are sinful, they already knew that. John’s real message was that God is coming, coming into the world to save us from our sin. That is what makes him so compelling. That is what makes his preaching good news. God has heard our cries. God has recognized that we are weak, inconstant like the grass and that we have not the power to save ourselves. God knows that we are broken and have made a mess out of this world. God knows and he is going to do something about it. God is about to do something new and we are invited to be a part of it. That is good news.
In Peter’s letter this morning he says that “we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.” What I love about that Anne Murray song is that she asks you to imagine what it would be like if you turned on the news and were overwhelmed by how much people loved each other and how beautiful life can be. Can you imagine what that would be like? Living in a world where righteousness was at home? That is what I think those people at the Jordan river were longing for and dreaming about. They wanted a little good news and that is what John was offering them. He was proclaiming that God was coming to do something new in the world and they could choose to be a part of it.
We may not be able to save ourselves, but we can prepare ourselves for the savior. We can admit that the world is this way because we have made it so. We may complain about all the negative news, but we sure spend a lot of time buying it and watching it, so at some point we have to face the fact that our desires and our actions are frequently in conflict. But of course, that is old news. I’m willing to bet that you already know deep down that you have done things in your life that have hurt others, hurt yourself or damaged the world we live in. You may not want to talk about it or admit it openly, but you probably know it. That’s not news.
What is news is that God is doing something about it. God’s son is offering us forgiveness of sins. He is alive and at work in the world; his grace is performing miracles and helping us to accomplish things we could never do on our own and most importantly, he is inviting us to live in a new world where righteousness is at home and where we are overwhelmed by love, not by evil. It will happen in his time, not our time, but it will happen. What a glorious hope we have.
Listening to the news can be overwhelming. It can be a painful reminder of just how much the world needs a savior; but we are Christians. We are a people that have been entrusted with the gospel, with the good news and the good news is this: we have a savior. Now let us share that news with a world that desperately needs to hear it.
Inwardly Digest 