Schroer: Sharing good news

Published 5:00 am Friday, February 9, 2024

A few months ago, my wife and I were invited to a gender reveal party. A young couple from our church was going to have a baby, and they invited their closest family and friends to find out, together with them, if they were having a boy or a girl.

The time for the gender reveal came. They handed the expecting mother and father cardboard tubes. On the count of three, they were to pull the strings, and either pink or blue dust would explode out, revealing the gender of the baby.

We counted down. They pulled the strings. But both blue and pink dust came out. Everybody laughed. It was a fake-out. That wasn’t the real gender reveal.

Then they took us to the yard. They gave the young father a soccer ball. They told him to kick it. It would explode and either blue or pink dust would come out. He did, and, once again, both blue and pink dust came out.

Ha, ha, ha. Another fake-out.

That’s when they took the couple over to the cake. They had the young mom and dad cut the cake. Blue cake inside would mean a boy, and pink, a girl. As you might have guessed, this too was a ruse. The cake was both pink and blue.

By this point, we weren’t laughing as much. One grandma looked annoyed. This was her first grandchild and she wanted to know.

That’s when we heard the sirens. A patrol car came speeding down the road and parked in front of the house. A police officer stepped out with a box. He handed it to the couple to open. When they did, it was finally revealed that they were going to have a baby girl.

The extent to which people go nowadays to reveal the gender of their unborn child or to announce that they are pregnant or getting married is pretty extreme. But I get it. They are excited. They want to share their good news with everybody.

For years, as a pastor, I struggled to find a good illustration – a good picture – to help people understand what the gospel is. The word “gospel” literally means “good news.” Yet it means more than that. It includes the idea of announcing or sharing the good news. The word “gospel” has a lot of action in it.

I am pleased to tell you that I finally have the illustration I’ve always wanted.

The gospel is a gender reveal party. The gospel is an engagement-announcing video on TikTok. The gospel is a funny YouTube video of a mom finding out she is going to be a grandmother for the first time.

The gospel is the joyous sharing of good news with others.

But the gospel isn’t just any good news. The gospel is the good news of God’s promises. The gospel is the good news that “God so loved the world, he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The gospel is the good news that God loves you and forgives you because of Jesus. The gospel is the good news that when you die, you will live forever with God in peace and perfection. The gospel is the good news that God will always be with you and will make all things in your life work out for your eternal good.

But the gospel isn’t simply knowing that good news. The gospel means sharing that good news with everyone we can.

The gospel is a gender reveal party.