Maybe the “good news” means:
Abandoning any condition we may have, in order to best love our neighbors like Jesus asks us to, without expectation of change.

Maybe the good news means:
Seeking and seeing the God-created beauty and humanity in every individual so everyone knows they are of value and worth.

Maybe the good news means:
Standing up to fight the injustices going on around us so we can bring about hope in a world full of fear.

Maybe the good news means:
People on the margins feel they are deeply loved by those who aren’t there beside them.

Maybe the good news means:
Actively opposing the dehumanization of others so each created human can be truly free.

Maybe the good news means:
Opening our homes to those in need of care, so we can enter into life with them and live a transformative love with them.

Maybe the good news means:
Lifting others up so that we may become less.

So that we may become less.

Maybe these things make us so uncomfortable that we would rather just tell people how they’re wrong and broken, and that we have the answer if only they would change, accept their fate, wait for their turn…

Maybe I need a soul change.

God was not content to leave me alone in this. To leave my simplistic understanding of the “good news” unchallenged.

Maybe, just maybe, this means we need a soul change.

Maybe we need to actually embody the good news as Jesus did.
Just maybe.

Let’s pause and think about what it means to be bringers of the good news. I used to think the Good News was simply telling others the “right” ideas I had. That if they would just get on board and believe as I did, well, mission accomplished. But in reality we need to embody the good news. Embodying the good news as Jesus modeled on earth. If it were all about simply knowing something, there would have been no reason for him to take on human form and become a relational being. He wouldn’t have had to love and care for the hurting. He wouldn’t have needed to meet people in their darkness. To have made the dark light. He wouldn’t have had to embody it. 

Maybe Jesus took on humanity to show us what the good news is – not to tell us. To have people feel it, to experience that palpable love and freedom for themselves. To bring heaven to earth in a tangible, relational, profound way for creation. That sounds like good news to me.