“Is There Any Good News These Days?”
June 15, 2025
Romans 5:1–5
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ***
In 2004 the movie “The Passion of Christ” was raging across the county. It was directed, produced, co-written and funded by Hollywood actor Mel Gibson. The movie retold the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life in graphic detail. It held the record for the highest-grossing R-rated film in the USA for two decades until Deadpool & Wolverine grossed $395.5 million, overtaking The Passion’s $370 million cume. (Men’s Journal 8/5/24)
Now, I am not one to jump at seeing the latest hit movie. When I started hearing people speak about Gibson’s film, most were very emotionally moved by it, while I stood fast to not viewing it. When I confessed this to another pastor, he told me he had seen it and he said for the sake of understanding the people commenting on it, that I should see the 126 minute long movie. He did not endorse it. In fact, he alerted me to pay attention to the last 20 seconds or I would miss the entirety of the good news that Jesus rose from the dead. A week later, with a heightened degree of movie critic-mindfulness, I saw the movie.
The movie was aptly titled. Although the word passion has become mixed up with romance, its Latin origins refer to suffering and pain. Later Christian theology and better scholarship broadened the concept of passion to include Jesus’ love for humankind, which made him willing to suffer and die for us.
All but the last seconds of the movie graphically present details of torture and the death of Jesus. Roger Ebert, the late movie critic wrote “This is the most violent film I have ever seen. It is clear that Mel Gibson wanted to make graphic and inescapable the price that Jesus paid when he died for our sins.” David Ansen, a movie critic for Newsweek, said Gibson went too far. He wrote “The relentless gore is self-defeating. Instead of being moved by Christ’s suffering or awed by his sacrifice, I felt abused by a filmmaker intent on punishing an audience, for who knows what sins.”
In the history of Christianity, there have been a number of theories passing through the centuries regarding the question: Why did Jesus have to die? To answer that question is to hold a particular position regarding atonement — which means how a perfect God deals with imperfect, sinful human beings.
In the movie it was apparent that Mel Gibson holds a mostly dismissed atonement theory known as the Ransom theory. In that theory Jesus was punished by God for the sins of people and by doing so, takes our place, substitutes for us and pays the ransom (to Satan) so we are not punished for our sins. The Ransom theory is not widely accepted in the West today by mainstream Christian denominations.
Yet, the teaching and the popularity of Gibson’s movie and the belief of Jesus taking on God’s worst to save us still has currency with some Christians. As a university student in the congregation I served said to me after viewing this movie, “It doesn’t make sense to me that a loving God would need to be satisfied by sending his son to be killed. That’s a vengeful God and not a God I want to worship.”
If you missed the 2004 film, Gibson plans a sequel which begins filming this August in Rome. Count me as one who will not view it.
The passage from Romans chapter 5 offers a sip of refreshing life and hope. The good news is not that God ransomed us using Jesus as a whipping boy. Not at all. The good news is that we are made right with God because it is God’s loving desire, through Jesus to show the extent to which God will go to have us, to claim us, to accept us no matter what. It is not out of God’s anger and Jesus’ sacrifice that we are forgiven and saved. Rather, the bible reading plainly states: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
Faith is a gift. It is nothing we can manufacture, muster up or attain apart from the gracious, giving Spirit of God. Thus, we are justified by grace through faith, and this is a gift of God. That is called unconditional love. Jesus, in his suffering and death shows how far God will go to have us — despite our sin and selfishness. Nothing we do can obtain this love. It comes to us only through the pure gift of God in Jesus.
For many of you, this is not a new message. To hear of God’s unconditional love is a message you have heard since childhood. And it never gets old, does it? Perhaps this message is slow to come clear to you. Maybe it is new. No matter. This good news of unconditional love by God in Jesus is what we Lutherans call grace — it is for you, for us, for all. I think it is a message we need to hear often, now more than ever, perhaps.
Why? Because it is a hard message to embrace.
*If you are a person who finds it difficult to accept a compliment, embracing the truth of God’s unimaginable love for you may not be easy.
* If you are an independent person who loves doing things for others but finds it difficult to allow people to do things for you, embracing the truth of God’s love being poured into you may not be easy.
*If you think highly of others, admire their intelligence, their kindness, but criticize or minimize your own gifts or self-worth, embracing God’s unconditional love may not be easy.
*If you are the sort of person who has difficulty turning off all the devices that consume your mind or it is tough to slow down and do nothing but listening to the quiet of your own heartbeat, embracing the truth of God’s unconditional love may not be easy.
This passage in Romans sums up the reality of God’s unconditional love given you. The writer Paul says this “God’s love has been poured out in our hearts.”
Kyle Chambers struggled to achieve everything in life. His Middle School basketball coach, Mr. Sherwood led both team A and team B. As a skinny kid, Kyle held a precarious position on team A and he knew he would get dropped to the B team if he did not hold his own. Coach Sherwood would put him in a game when the team was ahead by a ridiculous number of points and there was two minutes left on the clock. Nevertheless, Kyle kept up his attitude and practiced hard to hold his place on the A team. As he put it, “Better an A team bench sitter than a B team starter.”
During a grueling practice, Coach Sherwood impressed Kyle with one of his primary views on life. Running thirty second drills, the coach yelled, “Again! Faster!!” Some kids held back tears, some stumbled out of breath. As Kyle started to wilt, Coach Sherwood got right in Kyle’s face and with his beady eyes shouted, “Chambers, if you want to play on this team you have to prove yourself, prove yourself!”
Kyle was haunted by those words. They echoed in his mind. They never went away. “Prove yourself. If I do not play well enough, I will dropped.”
How often do we think that way? In order to make it through much of life, we have to prove ourselves. Prove you deserve to be on the team, prove you deserve the job, prove you deserve the promotion. Prove you are worthy to be loved. We think we have to prove ourselves, every day, in so many ways.
Ten years later Kyle was in a college class on “Comparative Religions.” The professor, Dr. Anderson, was a seasoned and wise leader. When he taught, a spirit of grace came alive and there Kyle learned an enduring lesson about life.
One day, during a break in class, Dr. Anderson found Kyle outside sipping on a bottle of water. He sat down beside him on a bench with sparrows fluttering about their feet. Dr. Anderson sensed that Kyle was a young man needing a different core view of life. So, this grace-sharing professor looked at Kyle the way he did when he was intent, with a gaze that penetrated to the heart. Then speaking to a still naïve and quietly struggling young twenty-year old he said gently, but firmly, “Kyle, you know you don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. Not to your parents, not to your friends, not to me, and especially not to God.”
It was a moment of grace and felt like a sandbag had been lifted from his shoulders. Kyle could finally say to himself: “I don’t have to prove myself to anybody, no one and especially not to God.” What dawned in Kyle’s consciousness brought an indescribable lightness of being that characterizes God’s grace. It is the good news we find in Romans chapter 5.
The noteworthy theologian Paul Tillich, spoke about such moments of grace this way: Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted — accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for that name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” (Shaking the Foundations, 1953 — sermon, “You Are Accepted”)
There is so much chaos, anxiety, fear and anger surrounding us. The news is grim. Murdered and wounded legislators in Minneapolis. Millions protesting perceived authoritarianism and the militarization of democracy. Immigrants being deported. National leaders uttering words of anger, accusation and revenge. There seems to be no good news to share in our communal life as citizens and global residents.
So, I want to counter the feelings and tensions to say there is good news this day. You are loved. You are accepted. It is a gift given by God, proven by Jesus. So, go confident, renewed, restored and empowered to embrace life, share grace and love all without condition. God’s love has been poured into you through the Holy Spirit and there is nothing that will separate you from this gift.
