Good News – Authentic Hope for Answers

Some atheists may react when I say that they miss out on the most important reality in the universe – God. Yet if God is really there, an objective all-powerful Creator, it stands to reason that wisdom would require us to take that fact on board. That, of course, presupposes the “if”.

I don’t want to rehash the evidence for God’s existence this time. I’d rather encourage people to think, at the beginning of this New Year, whether they need to make some adjustments to their way of life.

I don’t know if it has every occurred to you (as it did to me only a short time ago) that at the beginning of the Gospel record written by Mark, he quotes two extraordinary statements which deserve a moment’s reflection. He quotes in the first 15 verses of his first chapter, two challenging calls, made first by John the Baptist and then by Jesus.

The Baptiser came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1.4). A few verses further on, we read, “Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time is fulfilled’, he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news’” (Mark 1.14,15).

These two pioneer revivalists proclaimed the same requirement, laying on their listeners the same obligation: “Repent!” To repent means two things: change your mind, and change your way of life. In other words, both Jesus and John the Baptist proclaimed as their first message, that their listeners (probably quite ordinary Jewish people living in Palestine) had to change their ideas and adjust their way of living.

This was a message given to normal good-living religious people. But the presupposition of both preachers was that their audience had “got it wrong” both intellectually and morally; and they needed to change.

It may surprise you to know that this is still the first emphasis of Christian preaching today. It assumes that all people – all listeners – have got it wrong and need to be corrected, reformed, changed by divine truth. This change must take place on two levels – first one’s thinking, and then one’s living. In other words, Christian proclamation, following Jesus’ lead, insists that all people must change: their opinions are wrong and their lives are not blameless.

Now this is quite humbling. To be told you’ve got it all wrong and need to rethink your philosophy of life is a challenge to our pride. Maybe that’s why the Gospel message is not more eagerly received. We don’t like being told we are wrong. We hold to our religious ideas even though we may not have spent much thought acquiring them. But Christianity comes with a messenger out of heaven saying our human ideas are inadequate and need correction.

Christ brings fresh news – Good News – about our relationship with God: he loves us and wants to embrace us in a permanent harmonious relationship which will be a great blessing to us. But to get there we must take on board our need to rethink our ideas of God: Jesus brings unique truth about God that we would never know without his coming. We do well to listen, to read what he says in the Gospels.

And as we do, we will hear him say, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5.32). We are called to stop any unkind, selfish, evil, disobedient behaviour, and start a new life opening our hearts to Christ. This is Jesus’ call for you at the beginning of this New Year.

Clive Every-Clayton

Here’s another carol that catches in verse the amazing abasement that it was for the Son of God to enter our human situation. “Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, all for love’s sake, becamest poor”. We cannot imagine the wealth of glory that the Son of God left when he entered our world. The Bible puts it this way: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [or held on to at all costs], but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant… Being found in human form, he humbled himself…” (Philippians 2.6-8).

The God who calls us to humble ourselves in penitence before him, is a humble God! He did not disdain to fulfil his mission in becoming “nothing” – of no reputation in this world. He who was in the form of God took on “human form” to dwell among us. And “taking the form of a servant” means that he, the Almighty Creator, came to do us good – to serve us! Jesus himself said later that he had “come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). Jesus’ service for us was to give his life as a sacrifice that alone could atone for our sins, so that we might be forgiven! What an amazing kind of God this is!

Another old carol expresses the profound descent of the Son of God into our world: “Hark, hark! The wise eternal Word like a weak infant cries; / In form of servant is the Lord, and God in cradle lies” (T Pestel). God in a cradle! Sharing our humanity from beginning to end!

If the beginning of his earthly life is characterised by humility, his enduring the agony of death was the final act of service that he came to render. He “gave his life” to ransom us, who were captive as it were to evil powers; he came, the powerful Saviour, in humble love to redeem us by the payment of his own blood, given up in sacrifice on the cross. Such was his mission, and he fulfilled it to the end.

Another carol expresses the wonder of the Christ-child: “Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy heavenly crown when Thou camest to earth for me / But in Bethlehem’s home there was found no room for Thy holy nativity.” The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Mary was about to give birth in Bethlehem, “there was no room” available for them, so the humble incarnation took place in a stable, and the baby was laid in a manger. From the heights of glory to a cowshed!

The same carol goes on to express that which alone could be our worthy response: “O come to my heart, Lord Jesus / There is room in my heart for Thee”. This enlightened poetry gives us all a challenge: what place have we given to the incarnate Son of God, the unique Saviour of humankind?

It is an astonishing thought that our heart can become the home of the Saviour. In a verse of the New Testament we see Jesus standing as it were at the door of our hearts: “Behold,” he says, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him.” This is a word that we can put to the test. As he came to dwell physically on earth, so he can come and dwell spiritually in your heart if you invite him in.

Clive Every-Clayton

Tag: Good News

New Year resolution

Divine abasement!