To love God, and to love others

The Marsden Cross at Rangihoua. Photo by Ewen McQueen.
The Marsden Cross at Rangihoua. Photo by Ewen McQueen.
What is the ''Good News'', Alan Firth asks.

Two hundred years ago, on Christmas Day, the Rev Samuel Marsden preached the Christian Gospel for the first time in New Zealand. He used the text ''Behold! I bring you glad tidings of great joy'', from Luke's Gospel.

This year, churches around the country are celebrating the anniversary.

The Anglican Church in Otago and Southland is doing so with the slogan ''Have you heard the best Good News to arrive in New Zealand? - since 1814'', in cheerful fluorescent yellow.

But what do we actually mean by ''Good News''? Many people (and not just non-Christians) see Christianity as something oppressive, scary or difficult, something you would try to escape (as Jonah tried to flee from God), fight (as did St Paul, before his conversion) or sweep quietly under the carpet (like St Peter, briefly).

The church seems to be about following rules, about being good; about raging at everything that's wrong with the world. After all, isn't that what Jesus did?

Yes, and no. He wasn't that concerned with rules, but only with the principles that lie behind them - to love God, and to love others.

That may indeed be difficult, but it isn't oppressive or scary.

In fact, Jesus made a point of ignoring the letter of the law from time to time.

The obsession with a moral code is alien to the original basis of Christianity.

Instead, it's largely something that the church picked up when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire - and thus in effect the empire's moral police force - in the early 4th century.

But wasn't Jesus angry most of the time?

Isn't Christianity more about Bad News?

Well, a cursory reading of the Gospels can give that impression.

But the words of Jesus, the ''woe to you'' and the ''brood of vipers!'', don't give the whole picture.

A few years ago, I saw a DVD of John's Gospel.

It wasn't a retelling; it was the complete text (in English), spoken by the actors when actual dialogue is given, and otherwise by a narrator.

Beforehand, I thought it would be dull and rather corny. But it was enthralling.

Partly because of the quality of production, but largely because of the way Jesus was portrayed.

The best word is probably ''joyous''. He was full of energy, bubbling over with enthusiasm for what he was saying, with a twinkle in his eye and an engaging smile.

I'd never really thought of Jesus that way, but it makes so much sense, and it's supported by the historical record.

We know that people flocked to listen to Jesus. We know that for some people he was utterly life-changing.

He was so compelling that he was a serious threat to the authorities; and he went on to become the most influential person in human history, without doing any of the things that famous people normally do.

He had no political power. He never commanded an army.

He left no writings, and he had no Twitter followers at all. He simply - as the Gospels say - travelled throughout the countryside preaching Good News.

If that isn't what he did, he couldn't have had the effect he had.

Jesus was undoubtedly angry at times, when he saw people being hurt by others; but anger can't have been his defining characteristic.

All the indications are that he was a person of joy, of peace, of hope and of love.

So however much the dry text - or, sometimes, the dry presentation - of Christianity in the modern world can come across as Bad News, the reality is quite the opposite.

And the Good News that gave Jesus his joyous nature is this: the power behind the existence of the entire universe loves us.

That doesn't take away whatever Bad News might be bothering us; but it does completely change its context.

Because the Good News is overwhelmingly, staggeringly bigger than everything that might stand against it.

Because God is overflowing with enthusiasm and joy, and yearning for our company.

And because, in the end, God will triumph over all bad news (capitalisation no longer deserved), and we will live forever in the company of a being greater and more purely good than we can possibly imagine.

That's the Good News that Samuel Marsden brought to New Zealand 200 years ago.

And that's the Good News that the church proclaims today.

It's a message that is real, unstoppable, and incomparably wonderful. Will you listen?

Alan Firth is an Anglican who lives in Dunedin.

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