Carrying the Banner

I love that movie from the nineties called, “Newsies.”

Homeless, streetsmart boys find employment selling newspapers, and they often do it by embellishing the headlines. Their theme is that they are “carrying the banner.” 

I thought of the movie, and its catchy song, this week at backyard Bible club. The kids in my neighborhood were full of news, complete with embellished headlines and dance steps.

Like the movie portrays, I found that the most sensational headlines were the sad ones:

Two Boys Burned by Artillery Shell

Friend’s Mom Hit by Car

Free Lunch Program Ends, Leaving August Hungry

Mom leaves for Drug Treatment in California

The children are full of news, and mostly, they are looking for a worldview where all the pieces fit together instead of being left holding a broken puzzle. 

I took the echoes of their headlines to my Bible reading the next morning. I am in the genealogies of 2 Chronicles and the book of Ezekiel. All Scripture is God-breathed, but I am trying to read on fast-forward because Chronicles and Ezekiels are not really my genre. 

But, as usually happens with God’s word, something stopped me. It was a little headline, buried in the backpages of the Philistine’s newspaper: “And the Philistines stripped King Saul and took his head and his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to their idols and to the people.”

Chronicles is telling the tragic story of the end of King Saul’s reign in Israel. He and his sons were killed in battle against the Philistines (who boasted gigantic warriors, like Goliath). The sad part was that Saul killed himself. The Philistines hadn’t really done anything but discover his dead body, but they paraded through their land as if they were conquering heroes.

The part that stopped me was the phrase “good news.” The good news they had was death, and they felt they needed to offer it up to their gods as if it were really something.

They were embellishing the headlines! And the good news they had to share sure was hopeless and empty. 

I thought about the Good News I have to share with children who can’t make sense of a broken world. It isn’t news I carry triumphantly to my God, showing Him all that I am able to do for Him. Instead, it is Good News that He died to bring to me so that I could be saved and join Him in rebuilding the ruins that sin has caused in this world. 

The Good News I have to share is about life that overcomes death and perseveres through it. 

The Good News I have to share is that Jesus is Savior and He invites all to come to Him.

I don’t have to embellish the headline or hawk the story. All I have to do is carry His banner in love to a dying world clamoring for Good News.