I guess everyone has some idea what we mean when we talk about the gospel. But I wonder what your preferred translation of that word would be.
Is Good News the correct translation do you think? Is the gospel necessarily good news? You may never have thought about that question, but if you do think about it, you’ll realise that how you answer it affects how you’ll present the gospel to people.
You see if it’s just good news, then the way you present the gospel will be to tell people all the benefits that it brings, but to gloss over the negative side of the message. That is, what happens if you choose to reject it. The danger of that, of course, is that it can result in the message being trivialised, so that Jesus is presented like some sort of spiritual aspirin or pep-pill.
It’s a bit like that old riddle: "When is a key not a key?" Answer: "When it’s a donkey." Well, the passage that we have before us today from Luke 7 raises the question, "When is the good news not good news?" It speaks of the gospel as good news for the poor, but as we read on we discover that for some it’s bad news. Why? Because it’s a gospel about a new Kingdom and those who reject its King will in turn find themselves rejected.
When is the good news not good news? When it’s about a new King that you don’t want as your King or a Kingdom that doesn’t fit your preconceived ideas about it.
The passage begins with John the Baptist sending two of his disciples to ask Jesus whether he’s the one they were expecting.
You see, for John, the gospel that Jesus was preaching seemed like bad news. John’s expectation was of a Messiah who’d come to cleanse Israel of its sin. He expected a Messiah who’d restore the kingdom to its former glory.
Mind you, he may have been expecting the gospel to result in good news, but even his presentation of it didn’t sound too good for some.
Listen to what we find John saying in Luke 3: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. ... Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." ... 16"I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." (Luke 3:7-17 NRSV)
So John had actually announced a Messiah who’d bring wrath and destruction, fire and judgement. The fire that he’d bring would be a cleansing fire to prepare Israel to be God’s Kingdom once again.
But now John has been arrested by Herod because of his preaching of the need for repentance. So as he sat in Herod’s dungeon he must have started to wonder why Jesus hadn’t responded by bringing down judgement on Herod and rescuing him. He was beginning to wonder whether perhaps he’d got it wrong. The gospel that Jesus preached didn’t seem like the sort of good news he’d expected.
But was he right? When John’s disciples come to Jesus what do they find?
Well, Jesus is in the middle of healing many people and casting out demons, so he tells them to go back to John and tell him what they’ve seen. The things he’s doing are in fact the things it was foretold that the Messiah would do: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and good news is preached to the poor.
The trouble was, John had got his Messianic expectations from popular tradition rather than from the Scriptures. The things that Jesus did were exactly what the Scriptures had foretold. People were being healed and the gospel was being proclaimed. The Kingdom of God was being brought in, though quietly, by acts of mercy rather than military victory.
Just to go back for a moment to what I said earlier about the way the gospel is preached. It seems to me that there’s always a temptation for us, too, to be swayed by popular culture and tradition the way John was. We’re so used to seeing slick marketing approaches in selling products and even ideas that it’s easy to fall into the temptation of using the same techniques for selling the gospel, even if the ethics of such techniques may be a little bit suspect.
We should learn from our secular society how to communicate well, but we need to be careful that what we present is the real gospel, not just a spiritual happy pill.
But let’s get back to John’s question. Think about how Jesus’ gospel was different to what John expected.
First it started in small ways: for example through the healing of seemingly insignificant people. But at the same time its start was significant because it was open to all, even the poor.
The people who are mentioned in the passages either side of this one are all poor in one way or another. The centurion and his servant in verse 2 were gentiles, poor because they were excluded from the people of God by race.
The widow of Nain in v12 was both poor, presumably, since she was a widow, and she was a woman, so of little account in the culture of her day.
Similarly the woman in v37 was probably a prostitute and so would have been a social outcast, looked down upon by anyone of repute in the village. Yet Jesus brought to these people healing, new life, and forgiveness of sins.
But that wasn’t all. As we read on, we discover that Jesus brought something even more significant than even these.
After John’s disciples leave, Jesus turns to the crowd and asks them a series of questions about John the Baptist. What did they think of him? Did they see him as a great man? As one of God’s prophets?
Yes indeed! In fact he was the greatest of the Prophets because he came to announce the coming of the Messiah.
But then Jesus goes on to add this intriguing statement: "I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he."
Who could be greater than the one God chose to announce the coming of the Messiah? He was greater even than Elijah or Elisha.
But things have changed. The coming of the Messiah means the coming of a new way of looking at things: it means the coming of a new Kingdom: the Kingdom of God. The old has passed away, behold the new has come. The old order has now been upset. So much so that those who are least in the Kingdom of God are greater than John.
So why is that? Well, the answer I think is twofold. First it’s because John belonged to the time of promise. He belonged to the kingdom of Israel which was always looking forward to a new Kingdom that God would establish and that would last forever.
But secondly, it’s because those who enter God’s Kingdom do so, not because they’re children of Abraham, but because they’re adopted as children of God. In this kingdom, John is a mere servant. One whom God sends to announce a message. The most important servant, certainly.
But the least of God’s people in this new kingdom can call themselves sons and daughters of the King. As such, of course, they’re greater than John, just as the child of the family will always be considered greater than the servant.
And here’s the really good news for those who hear this message and respond: It’s free to anyone! When he talks about the least in the Kingdom he’s not implying that there are levels of rank in the Kingdom. Rather I take it he’s pointing out that whoever you are in this world, in the Kingdom of God you’re great. No matter what your social standing, those who come to God to accept his offer of love and acceptance are adopted as God’s sons and daughters the same way anyone else is.
In Jesus’ day, it was the prostitutes and the tax-collectors who were the outcasts. That’s why Luke points out in v29 that "all the people who heard this, including the tax collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism."
Entry into the kingdom of God was offered to all freely. Even the tax-collectors, those most hated of people, had been invited to enter. All they had to do was go to John, repent of their sins, and be baptised.
By the same token, those whose life revolved around earning the right to belong to the people of God, that is the Pharisees and the experts in the law, found this unacceptable. Notice how Luke puts it: they rejected God’s purpose for themselves. It wasn’t that God didn’t want them. He had something in mind for them as well, but they rejected it.
What was it that God purposed for them? That they should become followers of Jesus. That they should acknowledge him as God’s promised Messiah, their Lord. That they should accept his free offer of forgiveness and cleansing from sin.
But this was all too easy. Jesus finishes with this statement: "wisdom is vindicated by all her children." The wise recognise the wisdom of God when they see it, but not the foolish.
Here’s how Paul puts it in 1 Cor 1: "The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise ..." 20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? ... 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength." (1 Cor 1:18-25 NRSV)
The gospel is good news, is wisdom, to those who are being saved, but to those who are perishing it’s bad news, foolishness. Not because of the message itself, notice: the message itself is the wisdom of God; but because of the way it’s received. Those who reject it do so because they think it foolish.
But look how Jesus describes them. "They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ’We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ 33For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ’He has a demon’; 34the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ’Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’" No matter what John or Jesus did, the Pharisees were intent on rejecting their message.
You meet people like that don’t you? People who put a bad light on everything they disagree with. People whose minds are closed to other ideas; who just won’t be convinced. People whose minds are even closed to the good news of Jesus because it might mean change in their life.
Well, just as Jesus implies a warning to the Pharisees at the end of this passage when he talks about wisdom, so too he warns John’s disciples in v23 "Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."
There is a negative aspect to the gospel. The gospel is bad news for those who take offense at Jesus. Why? Because those who take offense at Jesus miss out on the blessings of the Kingdom. Because those who take offense at Jesus will find themselves on the outside when he brings his new Kingdom to fulfillment, when he ushers in the new heaven and the new earth that the Father has promised at the end of time.
The gospel is bad news for the foolish, because Wisdom is shown to be true by her children. In the long run the wise path will become obvious. It’s like deciding whether to wear thongs or boots when you’re going on a bushwalk. The wisdom of your decision will become quite clear as the days wears on.
So too, with deciding about the message of God’s Kingdom. Those who take the wise path will be vindicated and the wisdom of their choice will be made clear.
Just as the wise builder is vindicated when the flood comes and his house stands firm, so the wise believer will be vindicated when they stand before God in his throne room and are welcomed into his heavenly Kingdom.
On the other hand those who choose the path of rejection of God’s Son will be shown to have been completely foolish.
Is the gospel good news for you? Is it the wisdom of God? Have you accepted it as the power of God for your own salvation?
If not, now is the time to change your mind. That’s what it means to repent. Turn away from rejecting the call of Jesus Christ and accept his offer of forgiveness. Come into his kingdom. Make him the ruler of your life. That’s the wise thing to do.
For those who have accepted the gospel as good news, are you sharing it with others? It’ll only be good news for the poor if the poor get to hear it. And who are the poor? Well, in this context they’re anyone who hasn’t joined the Kingdom. They’re those who are excluded from the King’s presence for whatever reason.
The good news is this: entry into God’s Kingdom is freely open to all. But no-one will enter unless they’re first invited. That is, unless we who are already in it tell people about it. This is our purpose as a church: to tell people the good news about Jesus Christ, and to invite them to enter his Kingdom.
The message about the cross may be foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. Let’s work at being people who share the wisdom of God, in the power of God, with those who haven’t yet heard it.
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