I've Got Good News

Christian singer and songwriter Chris Rice wrote a song called "Good News." The song is a bluesy piece in which Rice acknowledges that human life is at times difficult, lonely, painful and shameful. He acknowledges that people sometimes "would do anything to lay down their burden," including any number of ways of escaping. He recognizes that people come to church hoping for relief and instead they hear condemnation, as if the Lord is out to get us. But, he writes, the Lord "ain't that way." Then comes the refrain of the song:

‘Cause I've got good news
It’s water for the thirsty
Comfort for the weary
Good news
I’ve got good news
There’s hope and peace and freedom
Jesus came to bring ‘em to you
And ain’t it about time
Ain’t it about time
Ain’t it about time for some good news

Well, I am still in the post-Easter Sunday glow of that good news. It's the ecclesiastical equivalent to the glow of falling in love. Some talk of a post-Easter let down along the lines of post-partum depression. I have a post-Easter love glow.

This glow is fueled by the trip we took into the valley before getting to the mountaintop of Easter morning. In the days leading up to Easter Sunday, we took a journey back to the somberness of that last meal Jesus had with his friends. We got to remember his call for servanthood he modeled as he washed the feet of his friends. We got to remember his command to be wholly committed to the well-being of other believers ("Love one another"). We got to remember the betrayal of Judas, blindness of the Jews and brutality of the executioners. We got to remember the symbolic death intended to shame the victim and warn all others.

Without that stark journey Easter is reduced to Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies with a generalized act of God thrown in to make it vaguely spiritual. To show up on Easter Sunday without that journey is like watching the Super Bowl only as they hand out the Vince Lombardi trophy to the winner. You miss the depth of the moment when you miss the struggle it took to get there. However, with that journey, Easter, well... glows.

And I'm glowing with that good news because I know that no matter what I've done, there's "hope and peace and freedom."

When I was in high school and college, my priorities were not with God. I spoke of this last Sunday. I spoke of drunken days gone by. I spoke of illegal, immoral and irresponsible acts. It was the PG version; we were in church after all. But I also spoke of how grateful to God I am that those things are in my past. I still sin, but I now pray with a throbbing heart the old slaves' prayer:

Oh Lord, I ain't what I want to be
Oh Lord, I ain't what I oughta be
Oh Lord, I ain't what I'm gonna be
But thanks be to you, dear Lord,
I ain't what I use to be

You know this prayer, don't you? In quiet and honest moments, you also know why this prayer matters. In those primordial places in our souls where we know are made for something we’ve never known but for which we always yearn… where we know we live in a land of wandering and can never really feel at home here… where we know something has gone desperately wrong and we cannot put things right… in those deep and often unarticulated places, we come to realize that it is God who is in search of us and God will set right what is so wrong at great cost to himself (and sometimes great pain to us). And what is gone is gone forever, and what will be will be good beyond imagining.

I've got good news. Easter promises that what will be will be good beyond imaging. Easter promises water for the thirsty and comfort for the weary. Easter promises hope and peace and freedom. Jesus came to bring them to you.