And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
I'm struck by this proclamation of the Gospel because it sounds so different than the ones I'm used to hearing. The formulation of the Kerygma (a Greek word meaning "to proclaim" or "herald") I'm most familiar with goes something like this:
- You were created for a relationship with God
- Through sin, your relationship with God was broken
- Jesus died on the cross, paying the price for your sins
- You can say yes to Him and live forever
It's a beautiful message and I don't disagree with it. It's absolutely Biblical. But when I compare it to what Jesus quotes from the prophet Isaiah, it feels to me to be somewhat... incomplete.
This formulation of the Kerygma* certainly expresses a key aspect of the Gospel or Good News. It expresses that in Jesus, we have a freedom from our sin and can have a good relationship with God again. It is a promise of individual renewal, something that we desperately long for, especially those who have struggled with things like scrupulosity or excessive guilt.
But this scroll Jesus reads from seems to insinuate something far more than just personal renewal.
The Good News is good news for those who feel their guilt for their personal sin, it's good news for those who long for personal renewal but it's also Good News for the whole world. The act of Salvation has opened up to all of us the possibility for deep relationship with God but it has also inaugurated the inbreaking of a new Kingdom - the Kingdom of God.
All throughout the Scriptures, Jesus has a lot to say about what this Kingdom is like.
- It flips our societal order - now the weakest/last/smallest members of society are the most important
- It demands justice but then triumphs over that justice with mercy (people are held accountable but forgiveness is always available)
- It makes love more powerful than politics, birthright, or brute force
- It makes healing and miracles normal
Now this is good news.
And there's so much more to this Kingdom than just these things. Are we there yet? Absolutely not. In theology, there's a concept called inaugurated eschatology, meaning that the Kingdom of God has come but it also has not yet come in its fullness - in other words the Kingdom is now and also not yet. We live in the inbetween, and it's our joy to have some small part in participating with God as He brings His Kingdom to fruition. This is why in the perfect prayer we say "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
The four point Kerygma formulation is necessary - personal renewal is essential to our participation in this new Kingdom. At the same time, I think that if we have a fuller understanding of what is meant by "The Good News" - that our personal renewal allows us to participate in the renewal of all things, we might be able to talk about the Gospel with deeper conviction. We can emphasize more than just redemption from personal sin and right relationship with God and include in our proclamation an invitation to Kingdom of God, which is only just beginning.
*The General Directory for Catechesis makes the helpful point that there are endless formulations of the Kerygma, which in the Catholic tradition is simply understood to be the proclamation of the Good News. So, while the 4 Point Kerygma I've shared above is certainly a formulation of the Kerygma, it is in fact, not the only formulation of it.