What is the Gospel, the “Good News”?

R. Thomas Richard

It is simple enough for a child, yet
immense, humbling the mature.
It is profound, filling every heart
that hungers for truth
and for love.

What is the Gospel?

1. There is a reason for our unhappiness.

Man was created good and in the image of God, but he fell into sin. Man tried to live without God, and as a result, he became vulnerable to illness and suffering, he entered psychological and spiritual darkness, and sooner or later, he would die. Man became confused, wounded and broken in the innermost center of his soul. He could no longer discern even his own best interest. Man had betrayed his God, and his fellowship with God – the source of his life – was now broken.

2. God came to help us.

When the time was right, God became a man, Jesus Christ, and He walked among us. He came to show us the good and the true that we must have, and must be, in order to live. He came to show us love, and to restore the life-bond of man with God.

3. Sin is deadly.

The spiritual darkness that was in man revealed itself against Jesus in ugly contradiction. Man killed the God-Man, the Christ who had come to help and to save him. Jesus came for us, He lived for us, He died for us. In His living and in His dying, Jesus offered to God a reconciling gift – complete, perfect, obedient love – that we ourselves were too broken to offer Him.

4. Love overcomes sin and death.

The complete self-Gift that Jesus lived in the midst of our sin, included His death. Authentic love brings suffering, yes, but pain and death are not final. Self-sacrifice because of real love bears the fruit of resurrection and eternal life.

5. Receive the Good News!

To hear what Jesus did, and to believe it, calls us all to a radical examination, and re-orientation, of life. If the story of Jesus is true, and really happened, then all of us are again being welcomed into fellowship with God, and a life of virtue and love.

Jesus as Son of Man made reconciliation with God, and has shown us how to live, and love, and die. Jesus as Son of God has shown us the heart-intention of God, and has opened the heart of God to man.

How are we to live? Jesus shows us: life is a union of love and truth even to ultimate self-sacrifice. Even death is not too great a price to pay, because fullness of love leads into fullness of life. We are to live in Him.

6. The power and mystery of the cross.

The sacrifice of Jesus, the cross, exposes sin and illuminates righteousness in the soul of a human person. As with a sword, human conscience is penetrated by the cross: shame and remorse for sin is released, hunger and longing for God is enkindled. Through such a pierced and opened heart, God can enter and can go forth, He can be received and He can be given. God can indwell, and He can be expressed in human fashion: the life of Christ is life for us.

7. Walking with Jesus in His Church.

Jesus reveals human nature to us, and He reveals God to us – the God who made us and who calls us into His life and love. He not only teaches, He enables: He is willing to remain with us. The life enabled in Christ is a life of love, lived in communion with one another. Life in Christ is life with Him, in His Church, and for the whole world. Even in a lifetime we cannot learn or live all that He reveals to us. Every step we make now carries us more deeply into His life, and into our own calling, our meaning, our happiness, and our fulfillment in eternity.

After these 7 steps, then what?

Jesus entrusted a Church of His followers, for His followers – a Church He promised to be with “until the close of the age.”

We enter Christ and His Church in faith and by Baptism. Once in His Church, we can grow in the grace of His Sacraments, learn in the fullness of His teachings, love in the midst of His people, and live in the power of His life.

Jesus has a plan and a purpose for every human person. Each precious soul that God created, He created in love and with a calling, an intention. Every life has a most personal meaning – a meaning wrapped up in love, and destined for eternity. We come to understand ourselves, mysteriously, only as we begin to understand Jesus Christ. His revelation to mankind is entrusted to His Church, and here, among His people and with His Spirit, the real meaning of your life awaits you!

Come, and see.