Show Notes
“Good news: Christ is risen!” — That’s what we say on Easter. “Christ is risen!” But that’s one guy out of one hundred billion or so... since Adam.
The preacher says: “No! Christ is risen, and you will rise too... If you believe. But is that “news”? Is it “news” to me if the news depends on me?
“Good news: Christ is Risen!” So, is it small? Is it news? And is it good?
Dan Barker was an evangelical pastor who now professes to be and atheist. At “Skepticon 4” in 2011, he proposed an interesting scenario: “Suppose you were walking by my house…and I were to go up on the porch and say, ‘Hey... I’ve got some good news! You don’t have to go down in my basement... You’ve been ignoring me and it’s made me so... horribly mad. So, I built a torture chamber down in my basement... But you don’t have to go down there! I sent my son down there. And it was gruesome... But that satisfied my anger... All you have to do [is] come up here... and tell my son that you love him and hug him, and then you can move in with us... And you can tell me how great I am... won’t that be great?’ So, would you keep walking?” Ouch . . . And good question.
1 Corinthians 15:1-2, Paul writes, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel [euangelion: “Good News!”] I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you...”
What does Paul mean by “if”? Does he mean that Jesus didn’t die for you 2000 years ago if you don’t believe today by the end of the sermon?
I once took my children on a giant inflated banana ride behind a motorboat in the Sea of Cortez. When we all fell off (as planned), my daughter Becky (terrified of sharks) began to freak out. I swam to her and said, “Good News! I was a lifeguard in high school. Do you confess that you need to be saved? And do you trust that I can save you?” She just yelled at me and didn’t answer the questions. So, I let her drown in the sea. That was her choice. We’ll miss her, but all the other kids said, “Dad, you really validated my free choice and my own sense of personal agency by letting Becky drown in the sea. You’re a good Dad.”
Actually, that last part didn’t happen. This did happen: Becky tried to climb me, stand on top of me, and I began to drown. So, I consciously chose to express anger; I pushed her away and began yelling, “Stop. Stop it. Just stop it, Becky!”
When I was a lifeguard, I learned that frightened drowning people will often seize control and endanger you both. So, to save them, you have to “NOT save them” but just watch them drown until they’ve exhausted themselves. And then, you can save them and swim for them. While they’re drowning, they’re not actually being saved, they’re being prepared to be saved. But then, once saved, they tend to trust their savior, and everyone can enjoy the giant banana ride on the sea of Cortez.
Even if you were a Lifeguard with Superpowers, like God, nobody that you saved could “receive” salvation, know salvation, or know you, the Savior, if they thought that they had saved themselves.
Maybe your faith doesn’t create the Good News, but your faith enables you to enjoy the Good News — kind of like enjoying a ride on a giant banana on the Sea of Cortez. Maybe salvation isn’t a reward for believing, but believing is literally salvation. Paul taught that all sin was “not believing,” that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” We are “being saved” from “not believing.”
1 Corinthians 15:3-6,17, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time. [He appeared to ‘the twelve’! Taken literally, this means that Jesus appeared to Judas in Gehenna. I doubt they stayed there.] And if Christ ha
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