SHARING THE GOOD NEWS MISSIONS SUNDAY

SHARING THE GOOD NEWS MISSIONS SUNDAY Fr Luke A Veronis What do you do when you have great news told you? You share it with others. You want others to enter into the joy that you have. You don’t keep it for yourself but you go out and tell others the Good News. We see this in the Gospel stories of both today and last week, when Jesus healed a man born blind last Sunday and then he raised up a man paralyzed for 38 years and gave him the ability to walk. Both times the people healed were so excited that they wanted to let others know what happened. They became witnesses of the Good News about Jesus. Of course, some chose to remain blind. Some chose not to listen or believe the Good News. Yet, that was their choice. As for those who were healed, they wanted to let everyone know what happened and who did it! Of course, we are in the final week of the Paschal season and during these 40 days following Pascha how do we greet one another? With the exclamation “Christ is Risen” and we respond “Truly He is Risen!” This is the greatest part of the Good News of Jesus Christ we want to share with the world! And if we’ve encountered the Risen Christ and heard His words of salvation, if we have experienced His healing hand in our lives and seen His miracles, then we naturally want to go out and shout the Good News on the mountain top. We want everyone to hear and to come to know Jesus Christ in their own lives! This is the central part of the Good News we proclaim - His victory of Light over darkness. Hope over despair. Goodness over evil. Love over the ego and hatred. Life over death. The Risen Jesus gives us the Good News that we can live with hope, in joy, with love because of the light He gives us. We are no longer blind but can now see. We are no longer crippled but can now walk. We no longer fear death because we know Christ has conquered death. The first book of the Bible, Genesis, talks about creation and it begins this way – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” Saint John the Evangelist adapts this creation narrative in his Gospel opening:  “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Jesus Christ the Light-Bearer brings Divine Light into a dark world of chaos. Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life… While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Saint Paul proclaims to us, “ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” The Good News of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ is light over darkness. Hope over despair. Goodness over evil. Love over hatred. Life over death. No matter how dark and depressing the world may seem, Christ offers an opportunity to view life from a different perspective. This fallen world won’t change until the second coming of Christ ushers in the fullness of God’s Kingdom, so we can always expect darkness and evil in the world. Jesus, however, offers His followers a different way to engage the world, a new way to confront the darkness in the world! Not only does Jesus say, “I am the light of the world,” but He then tells His followers, “YOU are the light of the world… LET YOUR LIGHT so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” How do we proclaim this Good News to the world? By allowing His divine light to shine forth from us! YOU and I are the light of the world! I heard a beautiful analogy of a father who had just bought his son a powerful flashlight for his son’s upcoming camping trip. As they walked out of the store into the daylight, the young boy wanted to try out his new flashlight and see how it worked? Being outside in broad daylight, though, the boy couldn’t see its light. He complained to his father that the flashlight didn’t work and that they should return it. The father, however, explained to his son that a flashlight wasn’t made to shine light in the daylight, but was made to shine light at night, when darkness is all around. Take the flashlight into dark places, the father said, and you will see its light shine. Isn’t that what we are all called to do? Think of where you see darkness in our world? It’s easy to look on the internet and see such awful stories of darkness in society, in politics, in the world around us. We can also see darkness in our daily lives and among the people we interact with every day. The darkness of loneliness. The darkness of addiction. The darkness of depression. The darkness of despair. The darkness of illness. The darkness which comes from a broken life. The darkness of life’s daily grind and struggle. Our light is needed precisely where there is darkness. Never despair about the darkness we see all around us. Instead, shine the light, be the light in the darkness, To turn on your flashlight of faith and let it shine brightly in that darkness! Become instruments of light, shining Christ’s light in the world. This is precisely what MISSIONS SUNDAY, which we celebrate today in our Church, is all about. Bringing the Good News of Jesus, the Light of Life, to enlighten all humanity. His Good News is for all people everywhere. To remind us of this call to share the light and to proclaim the Good News to all creation, let us sing a couple songs which our Sunday School kids have learned: Go Ye, Go Ye, into the world and make disciples of all the nations. Go Ye, Go Ye, into the world and I’ll be there for you. Alleluia we are Christ’s ambassadors. (x3) We are Christ’s ambassadors in this world. This little Christian light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. (x3) Let is shine all the time let it shine.