Good News Story.

Gospel: What, after all, is a magic spell, if not a formulation of words to effect actual change in the real world? Wasn’t that why the Greek followers of the Christ referred to the stories that had grown up about him: his birth, ministry, death and resurrection as euangélion – “good news”? Because, for sure and certain, Matthew told himself, nothing changes our world like good news.

THEY HAD BEEN MEETING above Matthew’s scriptorium for the best part of a decade. There wasn’t a lot of room, but neither was there a lot of them. Half-a-dozen on a good day, more often just the three stalwarts: Matthew, James and Rebecca.

Not that Rebecca was a wholehearted follower of the Christ. She subscribed to the doctrines of the Gnostics who, as far as Matthew was concerned, were hardly followers at all. Earlier attendees of these gatherings, offended by her angular questions, had stopped coming. But Matthew rather liked her questions, they tested him, made him think a lot harder about “The Way” than he would have done otherwise.

Truth to tell, Matthew liked Rebecca with or without her questions. Not many of his friends could read, write, or think as well as Rebecca.

That was why people came to him, a scribe. Writing was his business – capturing the questions, explanations and observations of ordinary Alexandrians on papyrus, fixing their words in time. A kind of magic, he’d always thought.

What, after all, is a magic spell, if not a formulation of words to effect actual change in the real world? Wasn’t that why the Greek followers of the Christ referred to the stories that had grown up about him: his birth, ministry, death and resurrection as euangélion – “good news”? Because, for sure and certain, Matthew told himself, nothing changes our world like good news.

Except, when he had offered that thought to Rebecca she’d just laughed.

“Nothing, Matthew? Truly? What about bad news? In my experience it’s bad news that brings people’s worlds crashing down. Bad news changes everything.”

“There you go again,” James had muttered. “Such pessimism. Honestly, Rebecca, I wonder sometimes why you continue to keep company with us. For, surely, those who follow the Way of the Christ must be counted the world’s greatest optimists!

Rebecca laughed. “Not quite the way I would put it, James. My description of you wayfarers would be the world’s most innocent, but also its most deluded, souls. You reach out for a redemptive god in a world where only evil reigns. A world of corrupted flesh and blood, in which the virtuous are crucified and vice thrives unpunished. Your Jeshua, the one you call the Christ, said it all when he said, “My kingdom is not of this world”, and yet you persist in seeking salvation inside it.”

“Jeshua said more than that, Rebecca – much more.”

“Did he, Matthew, did he really? How many of the Christ stories have you collected and written down? Think about the ones describing his birth and its immediate aftermath. Do any of them agree? One has him fleeing the wrath of King Herod into Egypt. Another tells of him being recognised forty-one days after his birth in the Jerusalem Temple. Some stories tell of humble shepherds attending his birth, others have powerful Parthian wizards offering the Christ-child precious gifts. What stock can you put in all these contradictory tales?”

“Each story is complete in itself, Rebecca. Each has its own lessons to teach. And I place more stock in these fragmentary and often contradictory recollections of God-made-flesh than I do in your Gnostic secrets. A loving father would not bar the gates of paradise to all but the wisest of his children.”

Rebecca shook her head sadly. “A loving father would send a messenger with a key to open the gates of the terrible prison in which his children are languishing, along with a set of instructions on where to find that key, and how to use it. Escaping the dominion of Rex Mundi, the evil king of this world, is no easy matter, Matthew, there are secrets to learn, knowledge to master.”

James sighed. “No great secrets, Rebecca, and just two instructions. Love God and love your neighbour.”

“No arcane knowledge to master, either,” said Matthew. “Just a child’s tale that begins with joy and hope and ends the same way. Certainly, there is darkness and cruelty in this world, but there is also light and the path to decency that it reveals. A narrow path easily missed. But those who look for it, find it.

“Jeshua, the Christ, was born into this fallen world, Rebecca, the details aren’t important. What matters is that by being born into it he transformed it.”

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 19 December 2025.