Advent: Season of Gospel Proclamation

Thus Jesus, in Luke’s account, announces the gospel – the “good news” of his mission on earth. At the time of his public gospel proclamation, Christ is years beyond his coming to the world as a baby born in lowly circumstances in an obscure part of the world. This Advent season we celebrate collectively the birth of Christ and the good news – the gospel – that Jesus, in spite of his humble beginnings, brought to humankind.

The gospel, according to Jesus, is about some very earthly matters: helping the poor, the blind, the oppressed. Jesus, in short, was “anointed” to bring mercy and justice to persons marginalized and outcast by the world. At the center of Jesus’ gospel is freedom. Freedom from the powers that cause oppression. Freedom from world systems – religious, political, economic, social, cultural – that enslave body, mind and/or spirit. These themes comprise more of Jesus’ teachings throughout the canonical Gospels than do any other subject. Luke, placing the passage above as Jesus’ first public proclamation, undoubtedly understood the core convictions of the Messiah.

For his part, the Gospel writer John summarized Jesus’ mission this way: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish (literally, “cease to exist”) but shall have everlasting life (literally, “life without beginning or end”).” Christ came to rescue the perishing. He came to offer life in the here and now, as well as the future. He came to pluck individuals from lives of injustice and nothingness and insert them into a stream of true life that always has been and always will be.

Yet, the temptation to cheapen the gospel always lurks nearby. Anointing proper belief as gospel offers us a way to control that which only God has mastery over. Confining the locus of salvation to the afterlife permits us to disregard most of Jesus’ teachings in order to justify our own gospel inaction.

Spending recent years immersed in the life of Baptists in antebellum and Civil War America, my research has plunged me into a time in our faith history when the gospel drowned under the weight of culture and society. Many white Baptists of the South, led by men seeking worldly power, influence and riches, forsook the gospel of Christ and embraced, fervently and religiously, the persecution and enslavement of African Americans. Fortunately, many white Baptists of the North remembered the teachings of Christ and committed themselves to fulfilling the gospel mandate of mercy and freedom for the oppressed. And while I’d like to think we’ve learned our lesson, it is troubling to hear a prominent Baptist today excusing Southern Baptists’ defense of African slavery with the dismissive declaration that “What Northerners were saying is that ending slavery was more important than spreading the gospel.” That a seminary president is seemingly so unfamiliar with the gospel of Christ is a jarring reminder that the good news often remains at odds with our own personal preferences and prejudices.

And yet this is the time of the year that calls us to our exercise our faith. Our world is troubled. Oppression and injustice are all around us. Yet the good news is at hand. This Advent season, do we dare to seize the opportunity to be gospel people?

May it be so.