First Response to Rescue of Three Captive Women: Joy

On May 6, three young women -- Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight -- who had been kidnapped separately a decade ago in Cleveland, Ohio, were found alive in a house not far from where they'd had been snatched. From the moments of their disappearance until the day of their rescue, nothing had been heard from the women, and their families grieved their loss while still hoping that somehow they would be found.
The women had been held as sex slaves by a man who is now in police custody.
Since the details of the rescue of the women, along with a 6-year-old girl who'd been born to one of the women while in captivity, have been widely covered in national news, we aren't going to to repeat them here. However, it's worthy of note that the joy in the families of the rescued women was shared widely not just among people who actually had known the women (who were 14, 17 and 21 when they were kidnapped), but also throughout the city and suburbs and, to some extent, across the nation.
The editor of The Wired Word lives in northeast Ohio, which is the broadcast area for the Cleveland news programs. He said he was struck that in almost every early report he saw on TV about the women being found, there were people rejoicing, crying tears of joy, smiling widely and cheering.
"It often appeared that whole neighborhoods had come out on the streets to help the families of the women celebrate," our editor said.
While we found no online article focused primarily on the joyful response, several reports commented in passing on the joyful atmosphere.
The Huffington Post, for example, reported, "Cheering crowds gathered Monday night on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight had been held since they went missing and were found earlier in the day."
The Daily Beast observed, "The news stopped everyone in Cleveland dead in his or her tracks. ... All three women were taken to nearby MetroHealth Hospital, where a huge and jubilant crowd soon gathered and patiently waited for any bit of information on their condition."
And according to Cleveland.com, a couple of days later, when two of the women returned to their homes from the hospital, "Crowds cheered and chanted the women's names as vehicles, flanked by police motorcycles, drove slowly to the two homes festooned with balloons, 'welcome home' signs and stuffed animals."
Well wishes for the women have poured in from across the nation, and, as of last week, donations to a fund set up by the city to help the women get established independently have come in from 34 states as well as from Australia, Canada and France.
Our editor commented that the joy in the city reminded him of the song "A Little Good News" (sung by Anne Murray) that tells of so much bad news in the media, and then says, "One more sad story's one more than I can stand ... We sure could use a little good news today." (See full lyrics here.)
More on this story can be found at these links:
A Miracle in... Cleveland? How the City Is Celebrating Amanda Berry's 911 Call. Daily Beast
Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus Return Home to Cheers and Hugs. Cleveland.com
Timeline: Three Cleveland Girls Go Missing; No Word of Them for 10 Years. CNN
The Big Questions
1. Is it your impression that life brings more bad news than good, more good news than bad, or a roughly equal mix of the two? Why? What bearing, if any, do you think that one's station in life and one's economic status might have on how a person would answer that question?
2. Are you aware of a personal hunger for good news? If so, what do you think is the root of that hunger?
3. In the Roman Empire, the word translated "good news" was often used for official announcements. Why do you think that Jesus and the apostles used the term "gospel"/"good news" to characterize Jesus' message?
4. What is the good news that Jesus proclaimed?
5. Can anything or anyone other than God satisfy the hunger for good news? Explain your answer.
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Luke 15:32
But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. (For context, read 15:11-32.)
The sentence above is the closing line from Jesus' parable of the prodigal son. It's spoken by the father of the prodigal to his other son, the prodigal's older brother, when that son objects to the welcome-home party the father is throwing for the returned prodigal. The father explains that for him, joy is the only possible immediate response, "because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."
In the parable, the prodigal had left home by his own choice and returned out of necessity, so in that sense, he is different from the three young women who were snatched away from their families and prevented from returning. But from the families' point of view, these women were lost and feared to be dead, just as the prodigal's father feared about him. On May 6, the women suddenly were found and had "come to life."
Questions: What was your reaction when you heard the news of the women being found? Why?
Isaiah 52:7
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns." (For context, read 52:1-10.)
This verse is prophecy to the Jews exiled in Babylon about the "the return" of God to reign in Zion/Jerusalem (v. 1, 8), in effect telling them that the time was coming soon when they would be able to return there from their captivity. At the time they'd been forced into exile, the Jews thought of God as "leaving" Zion, a circumstance that allowed chaos to run rampant. Likewise, they understood the return of God as bringing order, peace and salvation. Thus, the news of God's reign was VERY good news.
Questions: Think of a time in your life when things looked very dark, and then you received news that turned things around. In what specific ways was that news good? Did anyone qualify as the "messenger" or "angel" (the words are the same in both Hebrew and Greek) in your story of restoration? What are your feelings today toward your "messenger"?
Matthew 11:2-5
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them." (For context, read 11:2-6.)
For some reason, John the Baptist, after so boldly proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, came to a point where he wanted some confirmation that he'd been right, and so he sent his disciples to ask Jesus directly. Jesus responded by pointing to the good things that were happening as a result of his work: "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."
We should note that none of this was proof that Jesus was the Messiah. Rather it was evidence from which one could reasonably draw that conclusion.
Questions: To what degree are you more likely to be convinced about the truth of something when good things happen because of it? Do you look at news and personal events through a lens of optimism, pessimism, skepticism or acceptance?
Mark 1:14-15
... Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." (No additional context needed.)
The Greek word interpreted here as "good news" is euangelion. It can also be rendered as "gospel." The English word gospel derives from an Old English term meaning "good story." The New Testament uses euangelion to refer both to the death and resurrection of Jesus as saving events, and to the content of Jesus' message. It's used in the latter sense in the verses above.
In his book, He Walked in Galilee, Stan Purdum writes, "Mark tells us that Jesus came proclaiming good news. It was and is good news because it invites us to a loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is good news regarding sin's grip because it testifies that God's grip is stronger. The gospel is good news because it is hopeful not only about our ultimate destiny, but also about the mundane difficulties of each day. It is good news because it offers hope in the face of crises and tragedies. It is good news because the gospel both sustains us in the face of threat and empowers us to tackle insincerity, injustice, sinfulness, and other evil forces in the culture. It is good news because it breaks down barriers between people and calls us to see that we are fully related to each other because we all have the same Creator. The gospel is good news because it gives us the confidence in the face of death that God waits for us beyond death. It is good news because this gospel both helps us live and helps us when we die."
Questions: In your life, when has the good news of God been helpful "about the mundane difficulties of each day"? In what ways does your story intersect with God's story?
1 Corinthians 15:1-4
Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, ... in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved .... For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures ... (For context,  read 15:1-11.)
In the discussion above of Mark 1:14-15, we said that the New Testament uses the word "gospel" to refer both to the death and resurrection of Jesus as saving events, and to the content of Jesus' message. The verses here from the apostle Paul are an example of the former usage.
Questions: In what ways are the death and resurrection of Jesus the embodiment of good news for you?
In his book My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a Modern Believer, poet Christian Wiman, a lapsed Baptist and longtime skeptic, describes how first falling in love and marrying, and then battling cancer, brought him back to Christianity, but also to a place where the resurrection mattered less and God's presence with us in our suffering mattered more. "I'm a Christian not because of the resurrection (I wrestle with this)," he wrote, as well as these words: "Christ is God crying 'I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God.'" How do you respond to Wiman's words?
For Further Discussion
1. Respond to this, from Frederick Buechner, in his book Wishful Thinking:
    "What is both Good and New about the Good News is the wild claim that Jesus did not simply tell us that God loves us even in our wickedness and folly and wants us to love each other the same way and to love him too, but that if we will let him, God will actually bring about this unprecedented transformation of our hearts himself.
    "What is both Good and New about the Good News is the mad insistence that Jesus lives on among us not just as another haunting memory but as the outlandish, holy, and invisible power of God working not just through the sacraments but in countless hidden ways to make even slobs like us loving and whole beyond anything we could conceivably pull off by ourselves."
2. Respond to the lyrics of the song "A Little Good News" (See full lyrics here.)
3. In several places in his writings, C.S. Lewis talks about how the desire for good news (what he calls "joy," among other things) is a manifestation of a desire for God and for a relationship with him. He says his own conversion to Christianity was intimately bound up with this desire. Could it be that the desire for "good news" is a  manifestation of the more general desire for God?
4. Comment on this, from a TWW team member: "This concept of reacting to good news made me flash back to the killing of Osama bin Laden. I was night editor working at the newspaper. At 10 p.m., President Obama announced that bin Laden was dead. Good news. Right?
    "Well, I watched people celebrating, pouring into the streets, yelling, screaming and high-fiving. Now, no one was more upset about 9-11 than I was. And I truly believe bin Laden reaped what he had sewn. But was that good news? I could not bring myself to celebrate. I could not bring myself to mourn.
    "What is my point? Discernment. I rejoiced [about] the good news that the three women were freed from their horrible captivity. God's mercy prevailed. I rejoiced when the woman was found alive amid the collapsed building in Bangledesh. God protected one of his own.
    "I believe that truly good news leads us back to God's promises. He leads. He protects. He heals. He touches. Absent a direct link to God, have we got good news or simply something that makes us feel good?"
5. There's the news aphorism "If it bleeds, it leads." This means that, when it comes to news reporting, bad news will crowd out good news. There seems to also be a desire to receive bad news -- especially, perhaps, if it's bad news about someone else, or a chance to gossip about an "ain't it awful" situation. What's more, people are less likely to pay (in money or in time) for good news than they are for bad news. Apparently, at least when it comes to others, there is also a hunger for "bad news." Do you agree? Why or why not?
6. The desire for good news might reflect the situation of being taken in by the "police blotter effect" (the term comes from the historic "police blotter," a logbook of all crimes reported to a police department). There is always crime, yet when all crimes are publicized, it's possible to get a false impression that the crime rate is very high and at crisis levels. What parts of your outlook on life today may be influenced by something like the "police blotter effect"? How might you know?
Responding to the News
As followers of Jesus, it's important that we continue to testify to the world around us -- and to ourselves -- about why the Christian message is good news. It's also important to educate ourselves and our children about what we actually mean when we describe the gospel as good news.
Closing Prayer
O Lord, thank you that these three young women and the child have been freed from the awful situation in which they had been held. Be with them now as they adjust to freedom so that the scars of their long ordeal may not steal more time from them. Be with others across the country who have been similarly taken, that they too may be found, bringing good news to their families as well. In Jesus' name. Amen.