When he was at table with them, he took the bread. He blessed the bread, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him!(Luke 24:13-35)

Monday, January 11, 2021

A broken world in need of Good News

 


We live in a broken world.  Today, it’s a world of a pandemic and polarized society, of illness and unemployment, of loneliness and homelessness.  The gospels never deny the reality in which we live. But the gospels also tell us that the world is filled with more, is charged with God’s grace and presence.  Jesus reminds us of this truth with His good news.

Jesus invited His first disciples to follow Him in proclaiming that good news – a time of peace and salvation in the midst of illness and darkness.  Peter, Andrew, James, and John left everything to follow Jesus.  They left behind emotional, social, and economic security.  Jesus challenged them to let go of everything they were familiar with in order to join Him in a journey of spiritual growth and self-awareness (Mark 1:14-20).

Christ calls us too; right now.  This is our decisive moment.  This time divides our past from our future.  Christ invites us to new life.  It’s time to repent, time to leave behind our old lives, time to drop those nets that tangle us in false security and detachments.  Only then can Jesus transform us into fishers of people by proclaiming the good news.

The kingdom is near, the kingdom is among us.  In Jesus Christ, the kingdom has entered our time and place and circumstances.  It’s time for us to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ – as the Apostle Paul tells us “in season and out of season.” (2 Timothy 4:2).  Today, we find ourselves in the “out of season.”  Nevertheless, this present reality is the place where Christ meets us.  Here is where He beckons us: “follow me.”

God is very much with us in these times.  This is the ‘good news’ that are the Gospels.  And yet, for us, the good news is also this: that not even a global pandemic can arrest Jesus Christ, or us, in proclaiming the good news.

No comments: