Sermon video here.
“Good News”. For a phrase that we use so often around here, you’d think we’d talk a little bit more about what it actually means. We know what each of those words means individually, of course, but when we talk about Good News in a faith context, it means something more specific, doesn’t it? From a Christian theological standpoint, “The Good News” is shorthand for the coming of God’s kingdom through Jesus Christ. That’s it in a nutshell.
In preaching classes, students are often told that the goal is to find the “Good News” in scripture and proclaim it. It doesn’t matter if the day’s lesson is from the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament, the Psalms or the Epistles: the thing that makes Scripture holy is that the Good News spills from every page.
And yet, preaching is rarely an easy job. Not because the Good News isn’t there, but because it often doesn’t appear the way we expect it to. Where, for example, is the Good News in genocide? In war? Famine? Where’s the Good News in being told that we’re wrong? Or that we need to change?