2 Corinthians 4:3-6 (NRSV) 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. 6 For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
What is the gospel? I think we have a tendency to reduce it to something that we can capture in a sound bite. The gospel is ‘death, burial, and resurrection,’ we might say. I would ask, to what end? What makes that GOOD news? What makes it NEWS? Jesus came saying that he was the truth. He did not come saying that I have some propositions for you (not that he did not have propositions). He came claiming that he was truth, that he was offering himself as an example of what was truly human, as the love of God for the world, as an invitation to a benevolent relationship with the Creator. Clearly there was an inversion of the usual way of things in the ‘breaking news.’ We who claim to know something about this news proclaim ourselves as ‘your slaves for Jesus’ sake.’
Is that our way? Jesus’ way of sacrifice? Would we become a slave to those we meet, to those we know, to those who trouble us, for Christ’s sake? It is in those moments that the light shines out of darkness. And every time the light shines….it is breaking news all over again!
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