Do you want to hear the good news first or the bad news? It upsets me when people ask this question. I assume someone is sugar-coating the bad news to let me down easily. Don't get me excited and then deflate me. Just give me the bad news first, then pull me back from the brink. I don't want my doctor to start with, "The good news is your insurance will cover the surgery cost." Just tell me what you need to remove from my body.

The truth is I'm tired of bad news, especially when delivered with a shrug. I think all news outlets should have a bad news gauge. Today's news is 75 percent bad, down from 85 percent yesterday. Is the news ever half good? I don't think so. I want transparency in labeling so I can decide if I'm up to the news today. If Dunkin Donuts must tell me that a large Peppermint Mocha Swirl Frozen Coffee with Cream is 1170 calories, CNN should tell me they will deliver 95 percent bad news for 30 minutes. Aren't both equally harmful to my well-being? (Imagine a coffee drink more calories than a Big Mac with fries. How does that happen? If you have a donut with it, your insurance rates go up!)

I need to hear some good news. But if the news was too good, would we stop paying attention? Why would you watch good news when you could just go fishing instead? Good news is boring. Everyone is getting along, the stock market is up, the world is at peace, and new research says eating chocolate is the best thing to lose weight. Why don't we have news channels dedicated to good news? There is no market for it because we would just live our carefree existence. If every sermon were titled "Sunshine on my shoulder," you would tune out. We survived as a species in part because our nervous system is finely tuned to detect dangerous threats. Those who were good at sensing danger survived. We watch the news because our millions of years old brain stem has kept us alive. The problem is bad news is now sold as a commodity, packaged to keep us listening. Our ancient survival mechanisms can trap us in anxiety and despair. 

Survival needs a healthy tension between bad news and good news. We need to know what can kill us while having a worldview that says things can get better, your life matters, and you have some degree of control over your fate. A bad news meter could help us have a better information diet. Everyone needs calories; we just don't need 1200 in our morning coffee. We need enough bad news to face reality but the hope that we will get through it all. I'll call it the good-bad-o-meter. 

Liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez said this in more eloquent theological terms, saying, "The prophetic task is to denounce the sources of injustice while announcing God's hope for a better future." Pointing out what is wrong doesn't finish the job. Anyone can be a critic. The fulfillment is to announce what is possible. 

Mark's Gospel gets this right. Listen to the first line. "The beginning of the good news^[a] of Jesus Christ." What a great first line! It's right with Dickens' beginning "A Tale of Two Cities": "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." (See, the good-bad-o-meter.).

We immediately know the point of Mark's writing: Good News! The King James Bible reads, "the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." The old English word was "Godspell," which is literally "good speil," a great story you will love to hear. The Greek word Mark used was "evangelion." It's the root of the theological term evangelism. So, Mark says here is my story about the good news, the Godspell, the evangelism, the extraordinary announcement of Jesus Christ.

Let's look at where Mark wants to start the story. 

As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.

³ The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

Mark likes to mix his prophets. Line one is Micah and line two is from Isaiah 40, the Old Testament lectionary companion reading for today.  The beginning of the Godspell of Jesus Christ has some backstory from Isaiah. There are hundreds of relevant verses from the Old Testament, so why did Mark pick this one to highlight? 

Chapter 40 is at a fulcrum of change in the book of Isaiah. The historical prophet Isaiah writes over the years 740-700 BCE. The prophet focuses on the Assyrian Empire's threat and pleads with Israel to be steadfast with God and do justice. The only real protection from threat is to walk in the way of God's goodness. (Isaiah has a good-bad-o-meter. Here is the danger, and you can get through it.)

Chapter 40 is written by a second Isaiah. It is set 200 years later (540-500 BCE) after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the author is in exile. The main themes are that judgment is over, suffering is coming to an end, and a new beginning is coming. We get much of our Advent hymns from Isaiah 40. Our opening hymn said,

"Comfort, comfort ye my people, Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;" (Isaiah 40:1-2.) Other hymns with lyrics influenced by chapter 40 include "O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel" (verses 3-5.) 

Mark is grounding his good news announcement about Jesus Christ in an ancient story. God is all about new beginnings. It's helpful to hear the full quote from Isaiah.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴ Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

God is creating the road home from exile. The good news is that it is a divinely initiated construction project. Most construction projects are a mess before they deliver on hope. You must live with the mess from kitchen renovations to road construction projects to get to the hope. To get anywhere south on Route 1 from Boothbay Harbor, you must go through the Station 46 bridge project between Woolwich and Bath. Every time I drive by, I wonder what they are doing.  Workers have been raising valleys, then lowering the hill again, making the crooked straight and the straight crooked and back again for a couple of years. I wondered if this was one of these pork barrel political projects.

Upon investigation, I learned this complex three-year project will be completed by 2025. According to the Maine DOT website, the new structure replaces one that has "deteriorated to the point that the end of its useful life is near."¹ That is DOT speak for “this bridge could collapse any day now.” It was time for a new bridge, a new beginning. But it won't happen overnight. It requires raising Route 1 by five feet to deal with potential flooding. Because of poor soil quality, the road had to settle for 12 months; then, more soil was put on top. There are tidal flows of the river to consider. The overhaul of a bridge is slow, patient work.

Creating a new beginning in life is also challenging. Isaiah proclaimed God's work to return people from exile. Mark writes that 500 years later, humanity is still under construction. We read the Bible 2000 years later and wonder how long this overhaul will take. How long will the "construction ahead" signs slow us down? How much will it cost? Will we ever make the straight highway to the way, the truth, and the life? 

We seem doomed to perpetually living in a human construction zone. But maybe there is good news in this. God isn't finished with us. The good news of Christ among us is that God is willing to live with us with all the din, dust, delays, and detours along life's road. 

Mark tells us that John the Baptist is the messiah's spokesperson to prepare the way. John is not a smooth-talking, sugar-coating, blue-sky PR guy. The main word we associate with him is "repent." Repent is such a loaded word. It has become a judgmental and shaming word. You are no good, so you better change. Repent simply means to turn around and get on the right path. John simply looks at the bridge and says this has deteriorated to the point where it’s useful life has nearly ended. We must hear the truth of the bad news to act for the good. 

The good news is new beginnings are possible. The highway leading to peace is under construction. Inner peace, peace with our neighbor, world peace is under construction. It’s likely to be dusty, dirty, and inconvenient till completed. It may take longer than you expect. So why not start today? You can begin by making the path straight for the good news to reach your heart.



https://www.pressherald.com/2022/02/10/woolwich-bridge-replacement-project-underway