Homily

I believe that because of our fallen human natures we are more attuned to bad news than to good news. We love good news, of course, and we wish we could have it all the time but, in fact, we believe that bad news is much more common, it comes more often, it usually affects us more deeply and it tends to have a stronger and longer lasting impact on us.

You get a letter from the IRS and as you hold the envelope, do you think, “This must be good news!”? Do you read the newspaper or watch it on TV because you know the day’s news will cheer you up? When you go to the doctor for a checkup do you expect good news? How many days of the year do you wake up hoping it won’t be as bad as yesterday?

Bad news tends to affect us more deeply than good news: “It’s a boy! It’s a girl!”, “You passed the test.”, “You are accepted into the program.”, “You’re hired.”, “It’s not cancer!” These are all expressions of good news and genuine opportunities to rejoice. Good news can have big positive effects on us. But if I asked you to make a list of your best good pieces of news and your worst bad news items, I suspect the bad list would be longer. How much time do we spend waiting for the good news we are sure will be coming—and how much time do we spend waiting for the bad news we expect. The effects of good news on us are often very short-lived and not as easily remembered. But we tend to remember bad news more clearly and feel the results in a more lasting and memorable way. We are more attuned to bad news than to good news.

Today St. Mark begins his text with “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The good news! In Greek the word is “euangelion”—we get the English word “evangelist” from that, someone who preaches the gospel. The word “gospel” comes to us from the early English words “god” meaning “good” and “spel” meaning “news.” St. Paul uses this word over sixty times in his letters. For St. Mark “euangelion, gospel, good news” describes the whole saving event and work of Jesus Christ. It is all good news. He is all good news. We agree.

But the problem is we are more attuned to bad news and it’s not so easy for us to keep focused on the good. But that doesn’t mean this good news St. Mark writes about is not present for us. There may be sadness, loss, sickness, betrayal, disappointment, sin, and even death, but the good news we have in Christ Jesus does not disappear because of these but only if we do not choose to see it. I think a good definition of a saint is one who has so allowed the good news to enter so deeply into his or her life that it is their life. We heard St. Paul tell Timothy in his epistle today, that his life is running out in sacrifice. And what does he tell Timothy to do? Preach the good news!

I think one part of the reason why many people are not interested in Christianity is because they don’t see it as good news. And perhaps the biggest reason for that is that Christians don’t live it as though it’s good news, and don’t share it as good news. Are we not convinced we have the good news? Yet we easily forget in the attempt to struggle against all the real issues and fears that bad news brings.

My dear friends let us struggle to be so faithful that we wake up every morning realizing that we have very good news. Let the gospel become more and more the very foundation of our thoughts, our words and our actions. Let us face every challenge and hardship with the gospel message, and He Who is our Lord, because I absolutely know we have nothing better with which to meet the problems of life, and nothing better to give us courage in the face of death. May my knowing this continue to transform my life into living this. And I pray the same for all of you.

There is only One Who is gospel for us and One Who has come only for us, One Who allows us to receive Him in close communion here today. Let us thank Him, ask Him for our needs, and praise Him for His mercy. My friends, we have the best of all good news—Jesus the Christ.