Preparation helps us hear and receive the good news

++ An announcement of great change is not one we warm to — until we can see that it really is good news ++

by IAN GREIG writing in FAITH FRAGMENTS

Artist Sir Grayson Perry received bad news — 15 bills and an announcement that he was being debited £39,000

Before the birth of Jesus, there was a time of intense preparation.
Angels and prophetic people proclaimed the coming of what the Bible calls the kingdom of God. That’s the just and fair rule of God’s rule and order coming into people’s lives to their great benefit, especially the disadvantaged and poor.

This was an announcement of great change. But we don’t always welcome announcements, and we don’t always welcome change.

We’re wary of announcements because they may be bad news rather than good news. Change can be for the better or the worse.

The artist Grayson Perry, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’, related an energy company announcing that it was about to withdraw £39,000 from his bank after suddenly sending a cluster of 15 erroneous bills and estimates relating to his small rural studio.

Nobody wants to hear an announcement like that!

The preparation going on before Jesus was born, and later on before He started His ministry, centred on an announcement, not of impending charges, but release. It was the good news that a considerable debt was to be written off.

Our independence from God, not just our wilful wrongdoing, registers a debt in heaven, which the Bible calls sin.

How can that be put right? Our instinct is to try to pay it off by our good works. Most religions offer some kind of system to attempt this.

The announcement of the Good News is that God has done for us, through Jesus, what we could not do by our own efforts. The debt has been cancelled.

It seems too good to be true — why should we believe it? Preparation is needed before we can hear it.

God doesn’t lie. His dealings are straightforward, plain and true. Through Jesus we can know Him personally, and start to grasp the extent of His goodness and love.

But this takes a change of heart. It doesn’t happen instantly. That’s why we need times of preparation.

///////