Reflections from The Hill – News or Memory

It seems ages since I sat down to pen a Reflection and, of course, it is. My hair has actually become more silvery grey, such has been the length of the wait.

So much has happened in my life in the last few weeks that it’d be crass to even recall it all. I mean, I could begin with getting caught in the Qantas grounding, announced within minutes of me completing our On-line Check-in, but I won’t.

Or I could tell you about negotiating my way through ‘Bridge City’, the pet name that Grandson #2 has given to the Brisbane Inner-City By-Pass and the Clem 7 Tunnel. I won’t do that either.

Then there was the gathering of friends and family who shared with me a special anniversary in mid-October. I could get off on that, too, but I won’t, except to say that people’s generosity was in full view on that balmy night in Mackay.

It was a great celebration and I’m overwhelmed and grateful to those who made it happen. In telling you this much, I’m only scratching the surface of a life that is still delightful in every minute. Thanks.

Where do I start today? The geeks among us will already have noticed that the first bit of St Mark’s Gospel (we’re reading it this week) is all about beginnings, so why not take their lead?

There is one pearl to catch in this plain starting point: the opening words of Mark do not have a verb. “Oo-er,” say the grammarians; “so what?” ask the rest of us.

As it stands, “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ …” sounds like a bit like a title of a book and carries with it an expectation of a beginning, middle and end. Whatever way you look at it, that’s not news.

What makes something news, as a journo friend of mine once remarked, is that it’s new and, in so saying, has given me a different perspective on the meaning and value of tertiary education.

The idea that it’s also the beginning suggests to me that there is much more good stuff to come from this Jesus Christ the Son of God.

I know I’ve used the word news instead of the more commonly used gospel. Actually it makes little difference because the word gospel was the ancient world’s word for announcing a victory that the king (or somesuch) had just won.

This was good news. Something big had happened that had changed their immediate world and the announcement was aimed at getting a response, a bit like a kid selling papers or a publican shouting the bar.

So here it is. Mark greets us with a gusto that is unbecoming in Anglicanism. There’s an excitement in what he writes that would not be out of place in an afro-American or Pentecostal church, and the more so as we settle into the second week of Waiting for God.

We might expect the announcement (the news) to be full of power and machismo as yet another nation falls. But no; enter John the Baptist in his camel-hair-and-leather ensemble, more like an out-of-work actor or nutter.

We might almost expect him to be holding a cardboard notice with “Will Preach for Milk and Honey” scratched on it in felt pen, just to complete the picture.

John’s presence alone would be enough to grab my attention but what follows is mind-blowing. John is announcing a victory alright and it’s a victory of a king and kingdom and everything is about to change.

However, unlike those standing around listening to old Camel Hair for some news from the imperial front, we – a couple of thousand years on – find ourselves not expecting much at all, I suspect. Not much, that is, except tinsel and Christmas fare. That’s a shame.

We’ve heard it all before … angels … wise men … Mary and Joseph … baby in manger … little drummer boy … blah, blah, blah and it’s all too familiar.

I ask: when does news stop being news and become memory? That’s what’s happened to us, you know. We can mouth the words of John the Baptist all we like, and even sing the Godspell song, until inertia and nausea take over, which it does, and then what?

The sadness is that, in these days at least, John’s announcement isn’t the beginning of any news, let alone good news. It’s more like a history lesson being given in a museum.

My struggle is this: can I hear the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as news because it is new or do I continue to put up with the memories?