Year B | Recovering the Gospel
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
July 7, 2024
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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As Christians, we tend to talk a lot about “the gospel,” but what do we actually mean by that?
You’ll hear the term used in a variety of ways. Outside these walls, we might experience it as a shorthand description for an undeniable truth. Within the Church we’re more likely to think of it as the story of Jesus or a title we give to certain books of the New Testament which share that story. Some might recall its official definition of “good news”—particularly the news that Jesus spread as he wandered throughout ancient Palestine teaching and healing.
But what, actually, is the “good news” that Jesus proclaimed? What is at the heart of this “gospel” to which we often refer?
Within the Church, we often make this far more complex than it needs to be. We pile on so many peripheral descriptions and explanations and theological addendums or asides that what’s supposed to be “good” news ends up so drenched in bad news that anything good is very nearly lost. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Good News doesn’t need to be couched in death and blood and Hell. All of that comes from our hidden desire to invoke fear and manipulate a person’s response. We know this because Jesus himself never actually refers to the Gospel in context of those negatives. To find Jesus’ definition, we need to look to two specific passages.
The first is in Luke, where Jesus sits down in a synagogue, receives a scroll of Isaiah’s poetry, and reads:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [1]
He then immediately follows with his own statement: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”[2]
From this, we can understand the Gospel—the Good News—to be the pronouncement of “release to the captives,” “recovery of sight to the blind,” freedom for the oppressed, and the arrival of God’s favor. This is the most thorough description Jesus—or the Bible—ever gives, a summary of the ancient Hebrew practice of Jubilee.
Jubilee was the sabbath—or festival—to end all festivals. Before he died, Moses commanded that once they were settled in the Promised Land, each half-century the people were to observe a year-long celebration during which the entirety of ancient Hebrew society was to be reset. All slaves were freed and all debts cancelled. Property[3] reverted to the family of the original owner. The ground itself received rest, as active cultivation was forbidden, leaving foraging to become everyone’s normative practice. Lives were renewed, futures and livelihoods restored, the whole world flipped upside down in a complete undoing of socially-driven poverty. So that was Jesus’ version of “good news,” at least in Luke’s account of his life.
Toward the beginning of his writing, Mark offers an even simpler description, stating, “after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’”[4]
That might sound a bit circular, what with Jesus “proclaiming the good news” while part of what we read as this proclamation is to “believe in the good news,” so it’s helpful to break this mini-sermon into two parts, the first of which is the “good news” and the second of which is Jesus’ instruction of how people ought to respond. That makes the Good News itself to be, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”[5]
That’s it. That, at is very core, is what Jesus understood to be “the Gospel:” “Now’s the time—God’s Kingdom is” (to phrase it more precisely) “at hand.”
Now the phrase “at hand” has intrigued me for some time. We traditionally treat it as a homonym for “near” or “approaching,” but I suspect that by doing so, we as the Church have simply been making excuses for ourselves and our lack of actino. Jesus, for one, doesn’t seem to think he’s advertising an upcoming event. And the Bible is clear that it was John the Baptist’s role to get people ready, to prepare the Way of the Lord. Going with an extremely literal reading of the term, Jesus appears to be saying that God’s Kingdom is not “at hand”—something nearby but not quite available. He declared that the Reign of the Heavens was “in hand.” It wasn’t something out of the people’s reach. It isn’t something still lingering on the horizon today. It’s here. The Gospel—the Good News itself—is that God’s Kingdom is here. It isn’t coming. It isn’t somehow adrift in a metaphorical sea of “already/not-yet.” It isn’t something we’re still looking for 2,000 years after the fact. God’s Kingdom is here. It’s now. It’s present.
To push the phrasing only a little, God’s Kingdom is, in fact, in our hands.[6] God has already done everything that God needs to do. It’s our responsibility now. The Kingdom is here—we simply need to live into that reality.
That’s why Jesus continues his announcement with the instruction to “repent”—to change—“and be faithful to”—or trust, not simply assent to—“this good news.” God’s Kingdom isn’t based in what you think or how you feel; it isn’t somehow hidden behind what you see. It isn’t somewhere we someday hope to go. We can’t “bring in the Kingdom” any more than we can “build” the Kingdom. It’s already built. We just need to reveal—to live in light of—what already is.
The Reign of the Heavens isn’t, to quote a childhood Sunday School song, “somewhere in outer space” or simply a dream or empty promise. It’s already found—today—in what we do, in how we physically and actively live. That’s why it’s important to examine our actions in light of this reality: God’s Kingdom already is. So we look to our attitudes and behaviors. Are they in line with the fact of God’s presence here and now? If so, great—keep running with that! If not, don’t just stand there bemoaning what you see: repent—change. Don’t settle for the old, broken ways of doing things. Realign yourself with God’s Reign. Draw on God’s Image, and renew the earth—create something better! We don’t have to live in fear of condemnation or dread of loss. God’s Kingdom is here; our responsibility is to use the freedom we have to live like we’re already in that Kingdom—which we are!
The world—society—might be falling apart, but the Reign of the Heavens remains solid. Chaos may appear to be our new normal, but that’s simply what results from building on Empire’s lies, fabrications, and manipulations. Under all the trembling and shaking, we as Christians must continue to look to that firm reality at the heart of Jesus’ Gospel:
“The time has come—God’s Kingdom is in our hands!”
[1] Luke 4:18-19 | All Bible quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
[2] Luke 4:21
[3] Outside city walls—within those walls a sale remained permanent
[4] Mark 1:14-15
[5] Remembering that “believe” doesn’t mean “think to be true” but rather “be faithful to,” I interpret the second part to be his instruction on how best to respond to this “good news.”
[6] A more modern (and negatively tinged) expression might be, “No one is coming to save you. You have to save you.” The negativity, though, is mitigated by the reality that God is already and actively with us, also engaged in the saving through their children’s work.