News!
30 Mar 2022
If you had tuned into BBC Radio on 18 April 1930 you would have been very surprised at the content of the 20:45 news bulletin. It was a simple four word sentence. “There is no news”.
Fast forward nearly 92 years and that would be unthinkable. Most of us have got access to rolling 24 hour news channels. There are numerous radio stations all with news bulletins, and some which contain nothing but people reporting and discussing current affairs. And that’s before we even talk about the internet!
Yet, despite all this (in fact probably because of it), there is a problem. News has come to mean not necessarily what’s most important to know, but simply what is most surprising. We are a month into the war in Ukraine with no end yet in sight, but there are signs that we are growing tired of the reporting - so other things become the headlines. There are still terrible events going on in places which are not reported on anymore. And, perhaps even more significantly, there are many good things happening in our world which just aren’t considered newsworthy!
This shouldn't shock us. The very word “news” literally means “new thing”. So, we shouldn’t watch the news looking to be informed about what’s important - rather in it we simply see what someone has deemed interesting and new. We are hearing someone else’s agenda filtered through the media. But the danger is we think it’s objective and what we should be thinking about!
As God’s church we are to have our attention elsewhere. Our focus isn’t to be on the newest news or the worst news, or some highly paid media barons news agenda. Instead it should be on the good news.
It is no accident that the foundation of our life is the gospel - which literally means “good news”. We are not to move away from that announcement of what God has done. An important characteristic of news is that it isn’t opinion or prediction (despite what passes for content in our newspapers or on news channels). It is the announcement of something that has happened.
The word “gospel” was already in use at the time of Jesus. It was used for the announcement of a birth of a royal child or victory in war. When that happened the “gospel” would go out so everyone would hear it. God, through the gospel writers, took that word to tell us that the greatest of all good events has happened - Jesus Christ, God’s son and God’s king has come into the world, bringing in God’s kingdom through his death and resurrection. Salvation (including forgiveness of sins) is available to his people who have faith in him and repent of their sins.
We never move away from that gospel. It is, of course, incredibly rich and immensely deep. You can summarise the gospel in a sentence, but it will take eternity to comprehend it - as it involves who our God is and what he has done for us.
Our greatest need is to make sure that this news never gets old, to ensure we never tire of it, and to be insistent it never moves off our radar in favour of something novel or that catches our attention.
This is what we are doing when we gather together Lord’s day by Lord’s day. We gather to worship the Lord together, and we gather to hear the gospel preached once again. Let’s never think that the gospel is just for those who don’t believe! We are all quick to forget just how good the good news is, and we come from 6 days where our attention has been drawn elsewhere, living in a world where the good news just isn’t proclaimed or valued. As God’s word is read and preached, who God is and what he has done (and what we are called to do in response) is the message every time. We don’t first of all come together to learn something brand new - we come to be reminded of what we’ve already heard, and are called to see how central it is once again.
This is particularly vividly seen at communion. Yes, it is described as a “remembrance”. This isn’t so much to rule out that there is something spiritual going on in communion (Jesus is present spiritually as we take communion, it is given for our growth, we do really miss out as Christians if we never take communion). It is stated that way to stress that we are given it so Jesus’ death remains central in our lives and in our church. As we take the bread and cup we have a visual aid to emphasise all that Jesus has done for us - and to say to us “this is good news - don’t move from this!”