Jack Hardaway
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I’m going to get this wrong.
Good news of great joy to all the people.
How do I do that?
Good news for everyone.
What are the words?
How do I say it the right way?
Words, news, tidings that are joyful for everyone, all the time.
How do you even do that?
We know all about things being good for some people some of the time.
But for all the people?
It isn’t worth much if it’s for everyone, right?
The Messiah, born to the poor and proclaimed first to the poor.
That is where it starts.
Out on the fringe of things, to those who hang on the edge.
Fringe dwellers.
The boundaries of the heavens and the earth are violated, and the glory spills out upon the faceless and the forgotten.
Good news for everyone, starting there and then.
Jesus’ name has been spoken so badly for so long.
Usually the news of Jesus is all about bad news of scorn and derision for the wrong kind of people.
How do we speak and proclaim this news that is glad tidings of great joy for all the people?
Rather than more of the same?
So I’m going to fail.
I won’t get it right.
But that doesn’t mean the good news isn’t good news, it just means it’s more than I can speak and live accurately and faithfully.
We will fail fabulously in this proclamation.
And we can fail boldly and without shame.
Enthusiastic in our shortfall of spilling forth the divine splendor of this child and this night.
The people of the good news are really no better than anyone else, but what we are really good at is failing and starting over. Failure is the door way of grace.
How do we tell the story this time? How do we live the story this time?
Good news of God that really is good news, all the time, everywhere, for everyone.
How do I speak Jesus name that way?
The good news of God swaddling in our frail and fragile humanity?
Of flesh carrying God’s vivifying glory into the world?
Of human speech and relationships making God seen and known?
Of fabulous failures being the access to communion?
Getting it wrong without fear or shame and starting over again with hope and love.
Jesus.
The one who is placed in a manger will be placed in a rock hewn tomb.
Only the failings of flesh and blood can reveal God.
It is the mystery of the holy that inhabits this world, that only lowliness, weakness and failure carry the grace that sets us free.
Our failures aren’t a shame.
Our failures reveal God.
And that grace abounds.
The good news of Jesus.
Proclaim it. Live it.
Be fabulous failures at it.
Let God’s splendor spill through the infraction.
I’m going to get this wrong.
But it starts like this, “Do not be afraid; for see-I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.