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Are You Giving and Receiving the Good News? – By Father Andrew Bahhi

October 03, 2021
in The Word
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We have different ways of receiving news around us, like TV and social media, but we should be careful how we hear, and we should be careful how we receive the news from the outside. In Mark 2, when the Lord and his disciples were going in the fields hungry and ate wheat, the Pharisees did not believe in that type of “work” on the Sabbath day and criticized them.

They were looking to blame Jesus and his disciples for something. And this is the way we face criticism in our lives. We see things that make people look perfect, but in our lives, we don’t see perfection, and we feel bad about ourselves. This type of news is from the evil one, so we don’t feel good about our lives.

Similarly, we try to blame others by sharing bad news, and the bad news then becomes part of our lives. God gives us a mind, heart, and tongue, while we as humans corrupt it.

But in answering the Pharisees, Jesus is saying “you try to complain and share bad news and gossip to put the disciples in a bad image – but the Sabbath is made for the man. And you should share good news.”

The Lord says I came for every one of you to correct the damaged image you have. In other words, as David says in Psalm 23:3 – the Lord came to restore my soul.

We all need to wake up and pay more attention about saying good things about others. For with God, man is more important that everything else. In Genesis, God created everything by saying it is so, but when He wanted to create man, he used His hand. In other words, He put His beautiful touch in every one of us, and made us in His likeness, and gave us authority over all the creation.

He died on the cross to restore the lost corrupted image and make it as beautiful as it should be.

The Pharisees were there to corrupt images. And this is how we corrupt our own images, and the images of others, in front of God.

“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus said in Mark 2:27, which means we are more valuable than anything on this earth.

I pray that we all can be good channels, instead of the bad channels, like TV and social media, around us. Sharing good things, giving hope to people. Let’s be unlike those bad channels. Do you know what the name of the Bible is in Greek, Arabic, or Turkish? – it means the Good News!

Learn more in Father Andrew’s sermon video here.

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