Good News, Bad News and Good Friday
April 22, 2011 by cloften
Filed under Bible, Church and Leadership, Family and Parenting, Teaching
From Luke 7
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
There are some people out there that think that we offend people by talking about sin. “We need to talk about the Good News of the gospel. When you talk about sin, it’s bad news.” I confess I have fallen into this trap before. However, consider this. Good news is often made significantly better when we understand how bad the news was.
A friend has a cold and is healed is good news. A friend has cancer and is healed is GOOD news.
A billionaire winning $1000 is good news. Someone about to have their house foreclosed winning the same is GOOD news.
Jesus dying for the sins of someone who thinks, “Yeah, I’m a pretty good person. I need to be more religious,” I suppose is good news. Jesus dying for someone whose heart is often very dark and does bad things to hurt people on purpose, who feels isolated and lonely and dying, whose conscious is overwhelmed, who is desperate and hopeless is GOOD news.
When we take time to truly reflect on the fact that we didn’t simply need a boost, but because of our sin we were hopeless, desperate enemies of God, the good news of the gospel and the message of Good Friday become GOOD news on GOOD Friday. Take some today and reflect on the bad news, not for its own sake, but so that then we can celebrate all the more, the GOOD news of GOOD Friday.
