For many people today, the network or Internet news has become so full of negativity that it engenders disquiet and depression to the point that some refuse to listen to it. There are even some Christian teachers who recommend that believers avoid watching the news because it discourages living the life of faith. Instead, they suggest, focus on reading the Scriptures and listen to Christian teaching, and don’t let the CNN (the “constantly negative news”) pull you down into defeatism and fear.
While it’s clearly a believer’s responsibility to focus on the Word of God, it’s not a responsible attitude to ignore the news of the world and the nation. Christians need to be forewarned in order to be forearmed. Knowing what’s happening in politics and world affairs is important in understanding how to vote, and how best to prepare for the impact of current trends or the ill-considered policies of authorities who make unwise decisions that affect all members of the public.
Pondering this issue, I asked myself whether Jesus “watched the news.” Obviously, the various broadcast or print media we know today were not available in first-century Galilee and Judea. What people knew of “the news” was what had been circulated by word of mouth, or perhaps announced in some local gathering. But while their immediate access to the news of events outside their local milieu was limited, they could be aware of general conditions that obtained in their region, and of events that had occurred within recent memory.
The Gospel record reveals that Jesus knew of situations that were “newsworthy” in the cultural environment within which he functioned. He would have been aware, of course, because Jesus himself was a news broadcaster announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. At the outset of his ministry he gave out the “late breaking news” that Israel’s God, seemingly silent for centuries, was back on the move. “The time is fulfilled,” he proclaimed, “and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent [change your thinking], and believe in the gospel [good news]” (Mark 1:15). For people in Jesus’ cultural environment, as for people today, the idea that the Creator God is implementing his plan for his human family is the most newsworthy, and perhaps most disquieting and ominous, developing story.
Jesus understood how rulers functioned in the pagan environment of the Roman Empire. “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them,” he told his disciples. This, of course did not meet with Jesus’ approval. “It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:26-27). The coming of God’s rule means that a new style of leadership and human interaction is to become the order of the day.
So Jesus understood, and referred to, the ways rulers and nations typically acted in the first century, as they might act today. He knew that going to war requires careful planning and an accurate assessment of the assets available to both the attacker and the defender. “What king,” he asked, “going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace” (Luke 14:31-32). World conflicts in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries show the disastrous effects of ignoring this advice, but Jesus had “watched the news” and drawn a wiser conclusion. In the same vein, Jesus had observed that a nation weakened by internal conflict and division is in serious trouble. He posed this to his disciples: “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand” (Mark 3:23-24). As we watch the media today, we understand that Jesus was highlighting a serious problem for any nation, including our own.
Jesus was well aware of the power and sway of imperial Rome, and how Caesar demanded allegiance, tax revenue, and even — for most people of the empire — worship. He knew how the faith of Israel adamantly condemned idolatry and rejected images, but he also knew that Jewish teachers who opposed him still possessed images of Caesar on coins they carried. When they tried to trip him with a question about whether paying taxes to Caesar was lawful for a committed Jew, he asked for a coin and was presented with one with Caesar’s image. He used that coin to expose their trickery, telling them to give Caesar his pittance but the give God what was really important — the loyalty of his covenant partners (Mark 12:15-17).
Nor was Jesus unaware of the conduct of the local Galilean ruler, Herod Antipas. It had been Herod’s rash vow that had resulted in the execution of John the Baptist, and Jesus know about his cunning ways — perhaps by report of the wife of Herod’s steward Chusa, Joanna, who was a supporter of Jesus’ traveling ministry (Luke 8:3). When some Pharisees tried to get Jesus to leave their locality by warning him that Herod wanted him killed, he replied, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course’” (Luke 13:32). Jesus understood that the “teaching,” or manner of life, of neither the Pharisees nor the Galilean puppet ruler Herod were what God was looking for in the people of his kingdom; he warned his disciples not to let their “leaven” creep into their outlook and lifestyle (Mark 8:15; 16:11).
Jesus knew the history of the region in which he circulated. In the well-known “parable of the talents” (Luke 19:12-27) he referred to a nobleman who “went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return,” but whose subjects “hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We do not want this man to reign over us.’” When the nobleman returned to assume rulership, he had his enemies executed. This seems to be a reference to how the first Herod (“Herod the Great,” ruled 37-4 B.C.) was made king of Judea by the Roman Senate, and then executed many of his real or suspected opponents.
More recent newsworthy events in Judea also came to Jesus’ attention. Consider this passage from Luke 13: “There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish’” (Luke 13:1-5). This was not a warning about people’s eternal destiny. Jesus was aware of long-term trends in his nation, including a growing appetite for rebellion against Judea’s Roman occupiers. He was warning his community of the fateful consequence of an uprising against the superior military power of Caesar, and urging them to repent (change their mind) about resorting to violence. His warning went unheeded, however, and many people lost their lives in the Jewish revolt of A.D. 66-70 that ended in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its temple.
Jesus, evaluating the temper of many Judeans (including the Pharisees), saw that difficult times were ahead if they persisted in the course that would lead to revolution. He counseled his followers about what stance they should take during the coming time of turmoil: “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations” (Mark 13:8-10).
Jesus, prophetically, was “watching the news” ahead of time, like the news analysts of today who warn of the future consequences of things occurring in the present. Knowing the temper of the times, he advised his disciples to be “wise as serpents” even if they were to be, in their own conduct, “innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:13).
And Jesus, himself, was in the news. Speaking later of the events of Jesus’ ministry and what eventuated from it, Paul reminded King Agrippa that he knew about it because “this has not been done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). The Gospels tell us that news about Jesus’ doings was being widely reported in Galilee and Judea. Mark records that when Jesus healed the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue official of Capernaum, “the report of this went through all that district” (Mark 9:26). And when he brought a dead man back to life, Luke tells us, “this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country” (Luke 7:17).
When Jesus approached Jerusalem shortly before the Passover week that would take him to the cross, crowds of people went to meet him because they had heard about his raising Lazarus from the dead. The Pharisees, in consternation, said, “Look, the world [i.e., the Jewish community] has gone after him.” But the news about Jesus had gone beyond Judea and penetrated even the Greek-speaking Jewish Diaspora, for, as John tells us, some “Greeks” attending the feast asked Jesus’ disciple Philip, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:17-21). When Jesus entered the city in procession many people already knew who he was and answered their questioners, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee” (Matthew 21:11).
Did Jesus “watch” the news? He was aware of current, recent, and future events in his region. Not only that, but he was in the news, and a broadcaster of the news of the God’s return to his people — the news we call the gospel.
