Good News

25th Week in Ordinary Time - Wednesday (26 September 2018)

Proverbs 30:5-9

Luke 9:1-6

"The disciples set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and healing everywhere."

We think that forgiveness and restoration are the last stroke; that somehow people must get their lives in order so that they can be saved. No. That's not true. God's forgiveness, love, salvation is first. God doesn't wait for us to ask forgiveness, but He readily forgives and loves us endlessly. While it is true that a drowning person needs to learn how to swim, she first needs to be pulled from the water. While it is true that a hungry person needs to learn how to fish, she first needs to be given a fish for satisfying her hunger.

God loved us first. This is good news. He loves us without conditions. This is good news. He saves us; He includes us in His salvation plan even before we feel the need. This is good news. He forgives us promptly, even before we ask for pardon. This is good news.

God doesn't look at our faults, but at the places in us that are trying to say "yes." You do the same with your children. You see beyond the "no" to the abiding "yes." God sees the divine image in you as you see your image in your children. He is concerned about us more that we are concerned about ourselves. This is God. This is good news.

It is put best in 1 John 4:10, which can be paraphrased thus (otherwise it could be misunderstood): Love consists in this—not limiting God by our human equations of love, but allowing God's infinite love to utterly redefine our own.

You cannot earn something you already have. You cannot achieve something that is already freely and totally given to you. The good news is that you have be already included in God's saving plan, and you don't have to earn it by your good deeds. As God's children, we are asked merely to experience and enjoy the life given to us.

God (and His love) is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than our mind is capable of thinking.