When bad news takes a U-turn

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday March 29th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, a Good Friday reflection on “bad news.” Here’s WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: Newspaper columnist Doug Larson quipped in 1990: “Bad news travels fast. Good news takes the scenic route.” It’s a delightful turn of phrase on an old adage that nothing seems to spread faster and farther than bad news.

But what Larson’s proverb doesn’t say is that sometimes, bad news takes a U-turn.

I’m not just talking about looking for silver linings on cloudy days. You know, those platitudes we tell ourselves when we’re stuck in traffic and are about to be late to church, again. Or words of comfort like: “perhaps it was angelic intervention that kept us from a head on collision…” I’m not even talking about Romans 8:28, that great verse many of us memorized as kids: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

No, what I’m talking about is that sometimes what appears to be bad news, upon further reflection, just isn’t.

For example, here’s a personal story: A little over a year ago, a friend from church found out that his temporary, unpaid furlough from work was now “official unemployment.” He was in his mid 60’s, suffering from long COVID, and he lost his job. He realized that it was unlikely that he’d find another. Then, more bad news. His best friend was diagnosed with cancer. It was beginning to feel a lot like a Job scenario.

But then one day—in the midst of driving his friend to his doctor's appointments, picking up his groceries, and general help with housekeeping, he realized: if he hadn’t lost his job, he wouldn’t have been able to care for his friend, which he did for many months…through weakness…through illness…through hospice.

We buried that dear friend a couple months ago. At the funeral, the man had come to realize God’s great kindness in taking away his job. That piece of bad news meant he was available for the long, difficult, but very blessed goodbye.

Here’s another example you may be more familiar with: in 1956, five young missionary men were attempting to make contact with a violent tribe in the Ecuadorian jungle. And when they did, they were speared to death.

LIFE magazine did a full feature on the tragic news. In the years following their deaths, missionary wife Elizabeth Elliot wrote two of her most beloved books: “Through Gates of Splendor” and “Shadow of the Almighty.” The account of their lives spurred on a new generation of missionaries full of zeal and prepared for great sacrifice. They understood the potential cost, and they went anyway. Not only that, but a handful picked up the work among the Auca Indians, even living and working among the missionary killers. Including wives, sisters, and children of those killed. Ultimately God worked through them to reach and transform the tribe for Jesus Christ. God could have worked in a different way, but He chose to expand His kingdom through “bad news.”

Of course, this time of year, we can’t help but think of the ultimate bad news that turned out to be good news. Most of us have come to embrace Christ’s brutal death at the hands of rebellious leaders as good. We call this day: “Good Friday.”

But I would suggest looking even further back, all the way back to the garden. Is there any worse day in human history than our first parents taking a bite of that forbidden fruit? Then blaming each other? Then God’s creation for a decision they made?

They had no idea what it would mean for thousands of years of human history.

So how is that worst of days, that worst of news, good? Well, through it we can learn things about God we couldn’t see in a world without sin and brokenness. His justice, His mercy, His grace, His sacrificial love for wicked and broken people.

The resurrection we celebrate on Sunday not only makes this day Good Friday, but it also reverberates backward through time restoring what God spoke over His initial creation. That it is good. Adam and Eve brought death, yet because of the resurrection, we can say with the apostle Paul : “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” Of course the resurrection continues to echo in our day.

Even as we Christian journalists cover bad news, we acknowledge that God is divinely active. Wars, famine, political/cultural/and social upheaval, all bad news. But God, even in these things—no matter what happens—His purposes will stand.

So maybe Doug Larson had it right after all. Bad news does travel far and fast, but the good news is that God is taking the scenic route and one day will restore all things for His glory. And if He can redeem the ultimate bad days, he can certainly do the same for our bad news today.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

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