The Introduction to The Gospel of Yes
Introduction
“YES" IS THE WORD that dominates and defines Advent:
Mary’s yes to God through the angel Gabriel.
Joseph’s yes.
Elizabeth and Zechariah’s yes.
The shepherds’ yes.
The magi’s yes.
Our yes.
The Christian life is all about a ‘yes’ to God. Yes to his life. Yes to his love and mercy. Yes to his truth, beauty, and goodness. Yes to his will for us. Yes, even, to the crosses we bear with Jesus.
But for many, the Christian life is not primarily a ‘yes’ to all of the good that God wants for us. Instead, it becomes primarily a string of nos to the bad things we’re supposed to avoid, and, often, a no to the crosses God would have us bear. Christian life is mainly gritted teeth, hunkering down, and withstanding temptations and crosses until they pass. There is not much joy in the “Gospel of No.”
When our spiritual life is primarily about saying no, it gets stripped of its richness, beauty, and power. The Christian life becomes rule-based. Prayer becomes just a series of desperate pleas: Help me not to…, Keep me from…, May I avoid…, Prevent me from… The Sacraments become a matter of obligation. Minimalism sets in when we measure our faith life only in terms of avoiding the bad rather than saying yes to the good God wants for us. And worse still, our focus gets shifted off of God himself. We spend more time looking at the dangers we are trying to avoid, or the crosses we wish were gone, than at the beauty of God himself. We take our eyes off the goal, like a runner who spends more time looking backward at his opponents than forward toward the finish line.
Thank goodness for Advent! Advent provides us with the grace to reset our focus where it should be: on saying yes to God. Advent is a blessed and powerful season of ‘Yes.” At the center of these days is Mary and her incredibly generous yes to God. And around her ‘yes’ are the many others that helped welcome the way for the Lord: the yes of Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, the shepherds, and the magi, not to mention the yeses of the great figures of old, like Abraham. All of these were focused on saying yes to God, yes to his life, and yes to his great plan of salvation.
“Yes” is the word that dominates and defines Advent. Join us this Advent season as we say yes to God.
The Gospel of "No" or "Yes"?
Two Examples
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIVING a “Gospel of No” versus a "Gospel of Yes" is huge. Let's look at two examples to help us see just how big a difference these two approaches can make.
Example 1: Bearing Our Crosses
No one likes going through difficulties and struggles in life when our crosses are heavy. When living in the “Gospel of No,” our crosses often become the enemy, the things we most try to avoid or get rid of. As a result, our prayer can sound like this:
“Lord, get rid of these trials… Take this suffering away… It can’t possibly be God’s will that I should suffer like this… Why are you doing this to me?... This shouldn’t be happening… Why has God forgotten me?”
The “Gospel of No” can lead us to the state described by Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen:
A problem that many people have today is that they no longer recognize God’s will in everything that happens. They no longer believe in a providence that allows all that takes place to work for the good of those who love God (Rom. 8:28). They say all too easily and superficially: “But it is not God’s will that [there is suffering and struggles…]”1
As a result, we resist all suffering, bitterly complain when it comes, and spend a lifetime wrestling against it, confident that God could not be present in it at all. It is exhausting and tiring to live life that way. When suffering seems to have no meaning, and every cross seems pointless, it is hard to keep going.
So, what does it look like when we are radically living the “Gospel of Yes”? Fr. Stinissen’s words may be hard to believe, but here is how we can understand our crosses and sufferings through the lens of our generous yes to God:
God makes use of evil in such a superb way and with such skill that the result is better than if there had never been evil… Nothing falls outside of God’s plan. This is why the tragedy of the world, despite all its terror, has no definitive character. All the absurdity of which mankind's foolishness and blindness are capable is caught up in God’s loving omnipotence. He is able to fit even the absurd into his plan of salvation and thereby give it meaning.2
When we believe that God is at work in our suffering, when we find meaning in it and offer the best yes we can, we suddenly find new strength and purpose. It is not nearly as exhausting as it once was. There is power and energy in the Gospel of Yes when applied to the crosses we bear.
How radically different these two approaches are to suffering! One is rooted in the “Gospel of No”, the other in the “Gospel of Yes”. This Advent, we will open up the Gospel of Yes and enter into it, learning to accept and say yes to all God is doing, even when it involves the cross.
Example 2: Struggles with Sin
Imagine that your primary struggles are with pride and vanity. In daily life, you find that you are often concerned about what other people think of you. You strive for perfection around others, to always be right, because you are desperate to win the praise and approval of others. Fearing that any mistake could cause you to appear ‘less than’ in the eyes of others, you often work to get the last word, to justify yourself, and explain why you weren’t wrong in a particular situation. You build a spiritual house of cards on you. Everything rests on you working hard to get the approval and love of others.
Becoming aware of this and wanting to be free of it, you could spend most of your time in the ‘Gospel of No’ trying to fix it. Your prayer life could be consumed with asking God to help you not be prideful and vain in all of the various situations of daily life:
Help me not to be so prideful with my family and co-workers.
Help me to not always get the last word.
Help me not to always worry about winning the approval of others.
Help me not fear my mistakes.
Help me not fear appearing ‘less than’ to others.
Help me not always justify myself and my actions.
None of this, however, will bring the freedom and healing that is needed.
What does the ‘Gospel of Yes’ look like in this situation? It involves turning the gaze of my heart to the Lord. I spend my prayer time focusing my heart on him: his life, his love, his goodness. This ‘yes’ that initially involves just looking at the Lord and beholding him will gradually do something wonderful and amazing. Slowly but surely, as I gaze on the Lord, I will grow in my awareness of his love for me. I will become more aware that his goodness and beauty are turned toward me. I will become aware that I am the object of his great love and that God himself is interested in me.
This awareness will grow to the point that my heart finds its longing and hunger for love met more and more in him. I will discover my great dignity and worth as God’s son or daughter when I turn to the Lord in prayer and find, amazingly, that he is turned toward me, that he finds me worthy of his loving attention.
As this grows within me, I find almost naturally that my need for the approval and praise of others begins to diminish. I find that I am relating to others more naturally, not driven by the need for their approval or praise. My heart has found its deep need for love and approval met in the Father and Son, whom I have been gazing upon in prayer. The love I have found in the Lord has brought healing to my heart, and it all flowed out of my ‘yes’ to God, not my own string of nos to sin.
Is this really possible? Can this happen? Yes. This is the power of the “Gospel of Yes”. This Advent, we will enter into the “Gospel of Yes” with our Blessed Mother and learn from her how to give the most generous yes we can to the Lord.
Wilfrid Stinissen, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us (Ignatius Press, 2011), 13.
Ibid., 15-16.