Good News!

 

Based on Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

            I want to begin this message by asking you to take a second and think back to the good news you have received in your life. Anything come to mind? I remember one time when I was at the church in my office when the phone rang. I answered and it was my wife, Kim. She shared with me the news that she was pregnant! I hung up the phone, ran out of the church and across the yard to the parsonage, and bounded into the house to give her a big hug. What great news! What is your good news? Maybe it was something like when your daughter’s boyfriend came over to the house one evening to ask for your blessing to marry your daughter. Or it was your son opening the letter from Ohio State to learn that he had been accepted to attend school there. We get all kinds of good news throughout our lives.

            When we get good news, it gives us a jolt of energy, of excitement, and especially stirs within us a great sense of anticipation. As I embraced Kim and then we sat down and talked about this good news we began to anticipate holding our newborn baby. Giving your blessing to your daughter’s boyfriend, you anticipate the wedding and walking your daughter down the aisle. As you celebrate with your son you anticipate watching your son walk across the stage to receive his diploma in four short years. Good news prompts us to anticipate something good that will come in due time. It lifts our spirits and make us feel excited about the future.

            Good news also moves us into action. After Kim and I knew that she was pregnant and we spent a few moments reveling in the joy, we started thinking about all we have to do to get ready. Kim, the master of lists, was already working out in her head a list of all the things that would need doing. There would be a doctor’s appointment to schedule, a nursery to set up, a baby shower to plan and birth announcements that would need ordered. Now that your daughter and her boyfriend are engaged, there is a wedding to plan. Now that your son has been accepted to attend Ohio State, you now have to plan how to help get that education paid for and get your son moved out of the house and into his dorm. Good news, that stirs in us joyful excitement and anticipation of what is to come also motivates us to plan and get to work, to do the things that need to be done so that the anticipated birth, wedding, matriculation, whatever that anticipated event, can happen, that we will be ready to receive that anticipated event. Excitement, anticipation, action, this is what emerges from the announcement of good news.

            In the scripture reading for today we hear the prophet proclaiming good news to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives. What does he say? “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” God is about to do something. The people, who were enduring a time of great struggle and suffering, were once again going to experience God’s deliverance. The prelude to that deliverance is the prophet who proclaims good news.

            As the good news is announced, the people are filled with excitement. Their spirits are uplifted. They anticipate the exchange of ashes for garlands, the exchange of mourning for the oil of gladness. They anticipate the heaviness of their burdens and suffering to be lifted and for their lives to be better. They anticipate better days ahead.

            And with that anticipation comes motivation. The people start planning, start organizing, gearing themselves up for the real work of building up the ancient ruins, raising up the former devestations, repairing the ruined cities and the devestations of many generations. As they anticipate the time of recovery, of renewal, of restoration, that God is about to commence, they are motivated to action. They know that the restoration doesn’t happen by magic. It takes a lot of work. But it is hope-filled work as they anticipate, assured by God’s power, that the restoration will come to pass in due time. It is the proclamation of good news that initiates this move, from excitement, to anticipation, to action.

            We could use some good news these days. There hasn’t been a lot of good news this past year. In fact, it has been a steady stream of bad news. It sometimes has been so constant that we find ourselves numbed to it. There is a new term that has come into vogue lately: doom scrolling, which typically is referring to those who scroll through their Twitter feed looking at one outrage after another. It seems sometimes that we couldn’t go one day without some kind of bad news. It hasn’t been all gloom and doom. But, honestly, the bad news has been unrelenting.

            That hoped for vaccine that will help us get a handle on this virus has been developed and is beginning to be distributed, and that is good news indeed! I suspect that if we collectively weren’t already exhausted and numbed by everything that has happened this year we would be expressing more excitement and joy about that. It really is amazing how quickly the vaccine has been developed. With this vaccine we anticipate finally getting the virus under control. And we are motivated to action. Lots of planning has already been taking place, work has been underway in anticipation of the release of the vaccine. The protocol of who will get the vaccine has been determined. The logistics of distribution are worked out. The plans are going into action. We now wait to be alerted when we can go get our vaccination. Good news!

            We can anticipate a lot of good news in the year ahead. As we move into 2021, we will hear good news about case numbers and hospitalizations going down. We will hear the good news that mask mandates are being lifted. We will hear the good news that we can start having concerts and festivals again. There is going to be so much good news in the year to come. And this will fill us with anticipation that we will have the pandemic behind us. Good news! And as we anticipate that time post pandemic, we are motivated to action. The work of recovering from what this pandemic has inflicted on us will be extensive. The economic damage and the emotional harm is great. It is sort of like after the 9/11 attack. We have entered a new world. We won’t really go back to the way things were in February of 2020. We have seen more clearly how fragile our society is, how out of whack it is. The politicization of dealing with this pandemic has torn at the fabric of our society. It seems we are living in two different realities. We all have a lot of work to do, to offer our small contribution to the great project of recovery.

            Here’s some more good news. God is still with us. God has been with us all through these past months and God will continue to be with us in the months and years to come. We are still a functioning church. We have each other. The Free Store and the food pantry are still here, still tending to the physical needs of our community. They never stopped. We still are part of a community full of people who are caring, generous, and committed to making things better. We are not out of the woods yet, but the good news is that God is with us and we are still here! We anticipate that God will always be with us and that the church will always be present. This calls us to hopeful action, to keep living out our discipleship in the ways we can as we respond to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our neighbors. Excitement, anticipation, action.

            The year to come will be a year of recovery. As we continue our journey through Advent, as we celebrate the birth of the Christ, and as we then move into the new year, my invitation is that we proclaim good news. May the Spirit inspire each of us to be proclaimers of good news. The good news we proclaim is not based only on the vaccine. Our good news is based on our faith and hope we have in the power of God. We proclaim the good news that God is engaged in the work of renewal and restoration. We proclaim the good news that with God we have a future with hope. With the power of God we will, in our lifetime and in the generations to come, engage in the work of building up the ancient ruins, raising up the former devestations, repairing the ruined cities, the devestations of many generations. Our God will see to it that this happens. Good news!