FergusonPoetryProject LLC

My Dear Marcus Arthur,

What is good news? What is news? What is good?

Semantics, Linguistics, Connotation, and Denotation collectively create nuances in American English to the point of insanity. Those who master the craft of manipulation and politics thrive in communities where vagueness and loose promises can get you what you want. What about religion? Church and State collectively have utilized religious texts to manipulate the masses long before the formation of the United States, but since its formation there have been pockets formed throughout the country that have led many people towards confusion and away from God. But Why?

First off, what does Jesus say? Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father but through me.”

Let’s now take a few steps back and unpack these things in a way that the modern person can grasp with ease. What is news? A broadcast, delivering noteworthy information, sharing something that happened recently… something previously unknown to the public being made known to the public. These concepts are forms of news.

And so, what is good? To be desired, to be approved of, having the correct qualities being sought after, that which follows decent morality, that which parallels righteousness… these are traits in line with being good or goodness in someone or something.

Good news is the combination of something being good, and that something which is good being shared. Happiness is the word that comes to mind when thinking of good news. Happiness has been noted for many years as only being real when shared, and so good news and happiness seem to be in tandem. Happiness is only real when shared.

How one determines what is good news, and how someone decides to share good news are two foundational concepts that determine ones own perception of proper evangelism. Before going to deep towards theology and principality, it may be good to share some good news…

I am going to be a father! Yes, my wife and I are going to have our firstborn. It may be a boy, and it may be a girl. It is too early to know at this point in time, but what can be confirmed through both several tests and a doctor’s visit is that we, in fact, are going to have a baby. And now, the good news. It is a son! A gift! A future full of adventure as the Universe looks back at itself and smiles. We had two names, both male and female. This was our plan. Either or… male or female. God directed your life through time to be male. This is God’s plan.

And so, that has been a generic ‘good news’ example for humanity for thousands and thousands of years. And so, what does the bible mean about good news? Well, in the image of God we came into existence, and in the image of God we all live out our existence. God shares with us the good news about his son Jesus. Jesus is a child, a king, a man, a brother, a son, and a friend to many. Jesus is a teacher. In many ways Jesus is the teacher. Jesus and God are one. Jesus is an extension of God to humanity because of sin. Sin is the chasm between mortality and eternity. Sin is death. The only way for God to reconnect with humanity since the fall of Adam was either through an unsustainable form of purity seen in the laws of Moses, or through one ultimate sacrifice seen through the Crucifixion of Jesus. This is human history.

And so, Good News is shared around the world on a daily basis, but it seems that general ‘news’ does not lean towards the side of things that are good and favorable. News in the modern word gives people a feeling of disgust and distaste. There is plenty of evil in the world, and media outlets chase the almighty dollar in forms of viewership which typically peaks when things are destructive, deplorable, and in many ways demonic. Good News is just that. Good and pure. Good News will never make you feel less than… it will never make you feel unworthy, it will never belittle you, it will never double cross you, and it will never guide you towards hatred.

Good News is always in reference to the freedom that humanity can achieve through faith in Jesus. This is a compilation of bible verses referencing, “Good News”

Luke: Chapter 4: Verses 16-21:

“¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷ and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
¹⁹     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”^[f]

²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹ He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.””

Jesus was directly referring to the book of Isaiah in this message. And now, to recite Isaiah chapter sixty-one.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,^[a]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
³     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

⁴ They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
⁵ Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
⁶ And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

⁷ Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

⁸ “For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
⁹ Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

¹⁰ I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
¹¹ For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.”

And so, what did Jesus mean when he said good news? He meant every word spoken in Isaiah. He came to proclaim good news to the poor in that they were rich in the eyes of God. Aside from the ability to shift verses like this towards false promises of prosperity, the truth is that the treasures we lay up in Heaven through our acts of faith are the only things that will transcend space and time. Love, is a form of gravity, and just as gravity can bend space and time through mass, so our father in Heaven loves us in a way that bends space and time and transcends all we think we may know about love.

The resurrection of Jesus and ascension of Jesus is hard to fathom as good news in a world that seems to be ran by fake news. Yet, if good news is fake news, then salvation from sin is impossible and we are all still lost to space and time. If there is nothing that can break the bonds of mortality, then we can proclaim the atheists are truly the ones who have it right.

With that, as a Christian, we believe that love, like gravity, can bend space and time and distort the laws of physics and nature in the process. Love, like gravity, can accumulate enough mass to gravitate people from all walks of life almost as if one single hive-mind consciousness is forming around them. This is seen in forms of mass hypnosis, mass meditations, mass worship whether through music or comedy, and mass ceremony in religious or ritualistic setting. And yet, the love of God is greater.

Christianity utilizes the power of love from God towards man through Jesus to experience the belief that man is in fact immortal through salvation. A way to overcome death is the belief that one will never experience death. Some speak of death as just another birth. Christianity takes it one step further by asking believers to die today and be reborn today through Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Love for a community, the gravity or weight of feeling called to turn from one’s life of sin… this all plays a major factor into the perception of Christianity.

Lastly, Christianity, and Christian Liberty is a choice. Forever and for always there is a choice. You, Marcus Arthur Ferguson, will one day choose. In that moment, the beginning of the rest of your life will start. You will become a man. You will learn sin. You will understand love. You will recognize that every single day is a choice. A choice to do better, and a choice to be better. A choice to follow Jesus, or a choice to follow anything or anyone else.

The world will show you amazing things. The world will show you fame, fortune, luxury, pleasure, and arguably the most dangerous of all… comfort. The world will preach comfort in routine, comfort in wealth, comfort in peacetimes when war is beyond the horizon, comfort in clothes gifted by people who want something in return, and comfort in jobs without purpose but benefits that surpass the materialism within secular culture. Comfort in and of itself is not evil, but it can become a distraction away from God’s Will for your life.

I leave you with this… this is my favorite scripture (at least at this point in my life), and it is found in both the Old Testament in Habakkuk and the New Testament within Acts.

Habakkuk, chapter one, verse five, “Look at the nations, and watch, and be utterly amazed, for I am going to do something in your days, something that you would not believe even if it were told to you.”

It is repeated again in Acts chapter thirteen, verse forty-one, “Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days, something that you would not believe even if it were told to you.”

As my time nears, as my day of Judgment draws closer day by day, the world will turn on itself. The world as I know it, and the world as you will see it will slip more and more towards darkness through sin, hedonism, self-righteous knowledge, and self-fulfilled prophecy. Yet, look to the heavens, and see God’s creation. Our end is not the end. Our world is not the only world. But, our God is the one and only God. The God I serve, the God I love, the God that brought me your mother, and the God that forms you in her womb.

Good luck out there, champion.

As always, God Bless,

James Arthur Ferguson