Sharing Good News - April 18, 2021

by Rev. Doug Martindale

Luke 24: 36b-48

“You can see now how it is written that the Messiah suffers, rises from the dead on the third day, and then a total life-change through the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed in his name to all nations—starting from here, from Jerusalem!”

One of the advantages of the common legionary is that we get to grapple with difficult passages. This teaching of Jesus, in the English translation says: “...and in his name the message about repentance and the forgiveness of sins must be preached to all nations.” That is not a statement that everyone can relate to or be inspired by in these times. To some it is very off-putting, because of our regrettable history of missions, colonization, and oppression. In hindsight we sacrificed the medium for the message.

What I am going to focus on is Good News, and what is helpful now.

Another way of describing Good News is that it is about a change of mind that involves the reorientation of one's whole identity or, a total life change, as children of a loving God. Preaching to all nations means sharing the Good News to people who have not heard it before.

What is being preached used to be called the gospel and the modern rendering is Good News. What is the Good News and how to we share it?

I think in the United Church we have had a tendency to not want to preach or spread the Good News at all, partly because of our history of missions, plus the way fundamentalists preachers