We took one of our cars in for an oil change and tire rotation the other day. Oil changed, tires rotated, they called to tell us the car was ready. Good news, no other problems. When we arrived at the dealership to retrieve the car, we had to wait at the service desk for a few minutes while our service rep was finishing up a phone call with another customer. I didn’t want to eavesdrop and I am no mechanic, but it was pretty clear that this was not a good news phone call. That engine chugging and the smoke out the exhaust had to do with shot piston rings and a ring job was going to be at least $3,600.
As I listened in on the bad news call, I was impressed with how well and how calmly the service rep was dealing with that poor motorist at the other end of the line who, as best I could tell, was not particularly calm or taking the news very well. Just change the spark plugs? No. Covered by a warranty? No. New engine? New car? The ring job would be cheaper.
“Those calls are never fun,” the service tech told us after he finished the conversation with the customer who had just received the bad news.
I remembered the time in the spring of 1993, it could not have been a worse time, when we were given similarly bad news about the engine in our 1987 Plymouth Voyage minivan. Seminary graduation was just a few weeks away and the minivan that had faithfully taken our family from Portland, Oregon, to Richmond, Virginia, was not up for the trip to our new home in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The rebuilt engine cost $6,000 in 2024 dollars.
Bad news is never fun, but we live in a world that prioritizes fun and looks for any way possible to make bad news seem good. Christians may be the guiltiest of all in the practice of such deceitful alchemy. The death of a loved one? A frightening diagnosis? Loss of a job? Betrayal by a friend? “I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope,” we say, ripping Jeremiah 29:11 out of context and violating its rich truth.
The gospel is by literal translation the good news. And it is good news, good news that changes lives and changes our world. But it is not a talisman to warn off discomfort or disaster, despair or disease.
Having chronicled trial and tribulations like few of us have experienced or will experience (2 Corinthians 11:16-12:10), the Apostle Paul tells us not that the Lord delivered him from bad news, but that the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
“Therefore,” Paul continues, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
Neither a set of new spark plugs nor the prayers of all the saints were going to make those shot piston rings well again. Calmly and firmly, our service rep made sure the customer at the other end of the phone conversation knew that it was mostly bad news about the engine chugging and the exhaust smoke. It was going to cost a lot to make things right.
The gospel is the story of the human heart and the history of the world being made right. It is the story of what it cost a loving God to redeem a lost world. It is good news. In this world the saints are being sanctified and creation itself groans as it awaits a new heaven and a new earth free from sorrow and pain, tears and death. And in this world, those who know the good news of the gospel also know weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. We know, too, that his grace is sufficient for us, and that when we are weak, then we are strong.