Son-burnt

Forgiveness is not good news.  It's not because you have to admit you're a "sinner" - which, actually, if you're "in Christ", you're NOT and that's God's word (and people driving around with bumper stickers that say "I'm not perfect, just forgiven" sort of miss the whole thing in the Bible about how, because of what God SAID in/through/with Jesus Christ, you actually ARE perfect..your view of yourself reveals one heck of a lot about your theology...).  And it's not not good news because it's really freaking hard to do.  It's not good news because if we're all "just" forgiven...well, everyone still dies.  Forgiveness is not good news.  It's necessary.

The good news is that, according to the Bible, Jesus is alive.  And, if we are to talk The Apostle Paul's word for it, Jesus' death and resurrection is revelatory of God's plan for all of us.

So, actually, I can sort of understand this whole bit about "all religions having some truth to them" IN THE SENSE THAT (mostly) all of them say something about life beyond death.  Now, it could be wishful thinking, it could be our way of coping with the loss of a loved one...it really could.  But, if you think about how complicated life is, and how we've still not found anything like it on earth and how it really does look like the universe was designed (or "evolved" or "adapted" or whatever you want to call it) to support the life we have...well, it can't be as dark as "lights out" at the end of life.  It's not really an emotional position, it's a philosophical one.

Jesus' light is that He beat the grave and He burned the rest of us with it.  As in, though we die, so shall we live.  Or something like that...