These are the opening words to the popular hymn “Go tell it on the mountain” It’s a clarion call to share the good news of God’s salvation coming into the world at the birth of Jesus Christ. Something new and transformative is about to break into the world of gloom and darkness is the thought developed in this song. This Good news arrived through angelic transmission, allowing it to travel to those who were ordinarily outside of the news cycle. This was a deliberate act of God to set those who were oppressed free by sharing directly with them the Good news.

It is within that context one commemorates Juneteenth 2023. The good news of freedom was meant for the oppressed and enslaved trapped in the horrific act of human slavery by a white Christian society. The failure to transmit this Good news of freedom was ungodly and inhuman. The failure to transmit good news is a deliberate sin against God and neighbor. It took two years for people to get any significant news, let alone the God (good) news that they had been liberated from slavery.   But that is exactly what happened on 19 June 1865, when General Granger enforced the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas.

As we commemorate Juneteenth it is not only a reminder of how the powerful can suppress the Good news which challenges their stranglehold on earthly power but a reminder of our Christian responsibility to tell the Good news as quickly and efficiently as possible. The mandate of the church  “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. (Mark 16:15)

Many in our urban communities are still awaiting the good news as we continue to struggle with many forms of socio economic shackles ranging from mass incarceration, to income inequality, to voter suppression, to White flight, to police brutality.