Good Newsing

Introduction

Saturday Evening Post cartoon - “Compliments of the captain. He would like you to glance at the headlines to see if you’d still like to be rescued.” News fatigue

Back to Church - new set of headlines - good news - “gospel”

What exactly is “the gospel?” - different perspectives (heaven, social justice) - NT view

Arrival of God’s kingdom (Jesus’ first sermons)

Announcement of the King (Messiah) - Jesus who becomes King through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension - 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

I passed on to you as most important what I also received: Christ died for our sins in line with the scriptures, he was buried, and he rose on the third day in line with the scriptures. He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, (500 and then also to me)

Paul says, “This is the good news I preached to you, which you also received and in which you stand.”

Restoration of God’s people, deliverance from sin and death, return from exile, reconciliation with God

Invitation to return to a different world, God’s kingdom, where the news is good. No better text for coming together from our islands of isolation than today’s reading from Isaiah

Text and Context

Isaiah 40 - written to people in exile, announcing good news that return was on the horizon

Isaiah 40:1-11 - Advent texts - “Comfort my people” - voice crying out in the wilderness like a herald (John the Baptist) - announcing good news and denouncing sources of bad news:

v. 12 - Forces of nature gone wrong - but Isaiah announces that God is the one created the earth and “measured the waters in the hollow of his hand”

v. 15 - Political crises - nationalism - Isaiah says that the nations “are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as dust upon the scales”

v. 18-20 - Idols of material safety and wealth - we create tangible things to worship, money and security, but they fail us, too

But the bad news is not news to God and God reminds his people of the truth of the good news:

v. 21 - Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

v. 22-23 - The newsmakers of the world, the ones who make the headlines, are not newsworthy to God - for whom the earth’s inhabitants are as “grasshoppers” and the princes and rulers of the earth are “as nothing”

Such a contrast to the importance we place on politics and who’s in charge—but the truth is that they come and go - v. 24 “Scarcely are they planted…when he blows on them and they wither.”

No one who make the news will be God’s equal (v. 25) - the one who created the hills is the one who rules, “great in strength, mighty in power” (v. 26)

Bottom line: Human beings may suffer from news fatigue, but God does not. He is the author of good news.

v. 28 - Have you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless.

Truth is that we cannot fix breaking news no matter how hard we try—indeed, our obsession with bad news leads to a deeper sense of hopelessness because there’s nothing we can do about it.

Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985) - “The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing.” He called this the “loop of impotence” - and that was before social media. For many people, news is nothing but opinion and facts don’t matter.

God invites us to focus on the truth—the news that matters—that he is “the Creator of the ends of the earth” and has done all that is necessary to redeem it, and us, in Jesus Christ. That’s the good news! God’s kingdom is the reality, and the kingdoms and cares of this world are the parody.

It’s not about staying on the island in fear and worry, but about embracing God’s good news and acting on it. To focus not on what is out of our control, on what we can’t do, but rather on what we can do. What is that?

Isaiah 40:31 - “Wait upon the Lord”

The New Revised Standard Version God’s People Are Comforted

those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.

This is not the kind of waiting we’ve become used to—a sitting in your sweatpants eating Cheetohs and bingeing on episodes of The Office kind of waiting

To “wait” upon the Lord is more like the kind of “waiting” done by the wait staff in a restaurant—an attentiveness, a mindfulness, a watching for opportunities to serve and to actively seek God. It’s waiting done while being immersed in the Scriptures and in prayer, in fasting and in worship, in listening to him.

It’s not about remaining stationary and wringing one’s hands, hoping for rescue, but about “mounting up” - running without growing weary and walking forward without growing faint.

Galatians 6:9–10 NRSV

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.

Lent: A Time to wait and listen

Time to change our relationship with the news - “mount up” for the day differently

Stop doom scrolling, posting, sharing opinions—get out of the loop of impotence - lean into God’s good news

That’s how we get our strength back, how we are able to move forward as people and as a church

Good news is that we have been rescued, and it’s an opportunity to share that good news.

Back at church - a good news zone. Will you receive it? Will you share it?

The New Revised Standard Version God’s People Are Comforted

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The LORD is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary;

his understanding is unsearchable.

Those who lean into that good news will never suffer from news fatigue again, no matter what happens! Amen.