Feel Free to Pass on the Good News!

By Rev. George F. Borghardt

And going out, they fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

The women thought Jesus was dead. They had come to prepare His dead body for burial because in their universe dead people generally stayed dead. But Jesus wasn’t at the tomb when they got there. Instead, a young man dressed in a white robe told them, “He has risen from the dead. He isn’t here. See the place where they laid Him! Go and tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee. You’ll see Him there just as He told you!” Laid Him. Past tense. Not there anymore—not dead.

If you believed that Jesus was still dead after that then, trembling and afraid like them, you would say nothing about your faith to anyone. There would be only fear, death, and pain in this world for you. Sick people would die and then they would stay dead. Hurting people would have no hope. There would be nothing to look forward to in the future. No good news from God either— not even anything worth peeking at your phone to read.

But, if the One who was crucified for your sins has really been raised from the dead, then everything in your universe has changed. God cares for His creation, and cares for you. He, Himself, has personally answered for your sins. Salvation has come to all the world in Christ. Life isn’t short like the world says! It goes on to eternity. Jesus has been raised from the dead! There is no end of good news that you have to tell the world around you! This Gospel is the evangelion (εὐαγγέλιον), the Good news, that saves!

Lutherans have always been about the preaching of this Good News! In the Reformation, we were even called “evangelicals!” For when the Gospel came clear to Luther, when it broke through the darkness again, the Lutheran churches couldn’t help but spread that good news all around Germany! This is why you made promises at your confirmation to be faithful to the “evangelical” Lutheran church. Lutherans were the first evangelicals! We are the church of the Good News of Jesus!

Today, the word “evangelical” means something different than it meant the time of the Reformation. Most of the time when people refer to “evangelicals” now, they are thinking of American Evangelicalism. American Evangelicalism is a movement that is comprised of a mixture of Methodism, Revivalism, Baptistic piety, and some Charismatic understandings of Holy Spirit. As a whole it is anti-rational, anti-doctrinal, and anti-sacramental. None of that is Lutheran! Nor can it all be addressed in this little article!

When Lutherans talk about being “evangelical,” we are talking about the proclamation of the Gospel to sinners. The Good News is the great news that the tomb is empty. Jesus is not there. He is risen! We are saved by Christ alone—that is— by grace alone, received by faith alone.

You believe the words of the “young” man dressed in a white robe that the Lord has put in your congregation. Receiving gifts of the Gospel from God—that’s faith. Faith is born from the gifts, flows from them, and clings to them. Faith holds fast to the Word of God in the water and you are saved. It latches on to the Word preached, read, and spoken to you about what Jesus did for you. It trusts that Jesus gives to you His Body to eat and His Blood to drink for the forgiveness of your sins. The gifts give you the Holy Spirit and “the Spirit works faith where in when He pleases in those who hear the Gospel,” (Augustana V). Faith is always passive in its receiving of gifts from God, but active in works of love for those around you!

The women weren’t at the tomb accidentally. God put them there. The people around you aren’t there accidentally, either. You aren’t there by chance for them. God has brought you together for you to love them with the love you have received in Christ. In your vocations, in the places where God has put you, there are people for you to love.

The best way to love those around you, the greatest way to be good to them, the only way to truly care for them is to pass on the Good News and gifts that have been given to you in Jesus. You love them as Christ has loved you. You live for them in a universe where Jesus has died and risen again for you. You reflect the light of Christ into the darkness of their world.

This isn’t force-feeding religion down someone’s throat. It’s not Bible-thumping. It’s simply being a friend to the people around you. When they have been hurt, you comfort. When they have pain, you suffer that pain alongside them. When they need answers, you tell them the only answer you know: Christ died for your sins and was raised for your forgiveness.

You aren’t trained to be a pastor. But you are the specific person God has put into their lives to speak the good news to them at this particular time. You are their friend, their neighbor, their classmate, their relative, their co-worker, their girlfriend or boyfriend. The Holy Spirit actually does the work. You are on the receiving end of it. Your neighbors are, too, through you.

You are forgiven, so forgive your family. You are comforted in Christ, so comfort your friends when they have tough days. You are at peace with God, so be at peace with others who aren’t at peace. Repeat to them what you have been given in church. Model what you learned in Confirmation. Tell those around you what you read in your devotion in the morning. And when you get in over your head, get your pastor involved.

The young man in white told the ladies at the empty tomb what to say. The Lord will give you words to say, too. It all rests on Jesus. It’s passing on the love, and mercy, and forgiveness which has been given to you in Him. It starts where the Lord has put you for others, and always ends where the gifts that enliven you are regularly given out—at church. It’s on Him—not you.

The Gospel is evangelical so Lutherans are, too. Everything we believe, teach, and confess is centered around the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith flows from the gifts. God has been evangelical to you in Christ Jesus. You are free to be evangelical to others, too.

Rev. George F. Borghardt is the senior pastor at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in McHenry, Illinois. He also serves as the president of Higher Things.