I love how one-word declarations seem to come into fad every now and then. For me, high school was peppered by shoutings of, “random!” whenever something ever so slightly off-kilter would occur. And then we moved to, “crucial!” for whatever seemed awesome or important. And more recently, there was “awkward!” in order to fill uncomfortable spaces- or to create them for the heck of it.
The current exclamation was first brought to my attention while I was helping to coach a soccer practice. Someone would miss a shot: “fail!” Someone would send a pass just a little too far to the right: “fail!” There was lots of laughing- we were having a light practice and it was all in good fun. However, after having the word tossed at me a couple of times, it got me thinking about the nature of what was actually going on.
Why might it be so enjoyable to highlight subtle mistakes with the word, “fail?” How did a word of weakness and error come into popularity? Could it be that we take comfort in other peoples’ mistakes because we know that we are just as capable of making them? Could it be that we are finally facing the reality of the imperfection we live in? Does the humor of this come from an ironic use of the word considering the fact that we are a culture entrenched in striving for success, achievement, and perfection?
I think that this phenomenon is hitting on one of the sweetest parts of the gospel: we are all the same in our need. It isn’t difficult to see that we are a broken world; we lie, we try to control others, we look out for ourselves, and we fail one another. We need help. We need rescuing from the outside, because no matter how hard we try, we can’t fix ourselves. We need hope that we are not left to work ourselves to death trying to be “better people” (whatever that is).
This is what Romans 3:22-23 is getting at when it says, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We are all the same in our need, in our falling short, in our “fail.”ure. But, thankfully, we are not left to fend for ourselves in futility. We are met by a God who takes our failure, our sin, upon Himself and dies for it on a cross. He then conquers it and offers us life in Himself. Therein lies the beauty of Colossians 2:13-15: “When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the
written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Therefore, I make this proposition: when we hear the word, “fail.” pop out of our mouths, let us recognize that we are the same in our failure, and let it point to Jesus’ power in and victory over our failure. We are never left alone in that failure; He has come to give us light, hope, and full life right in the middle of it.
The current exclamation was first brought to my attention while I was helping to coach a soccer practice. Someone would miss a shot: “fail!” Someone would send a pass just a little too far to the right: “fail!” There was lots of laughing- we were having a light practice and it was all in good fun. However, after having the word tossed at me a couple of times, it got me thinking about the nature of what was actually going on.
Why might it be so enjoyable to highlight subtle mistakes with the word, “fail?” How did a word of weakness and error come into popularity? Could it be that we take comfort in other peoples’ mistakes because we know that we are just as capable of making them? Could it be that we are finally facing the reality of the imperfection we live in? Does the humor of this come from an ironic use of the word considering the fact that we are a culture entrenched in striving for success, achievement, and perfection?
I think that this phenomenon is hitting on one of the sweetest parts of the gospel: we are all the same in our need. It isn’t difficult to see that we are a broken world; we lie, we try to control others, we look out for ourselves, and we fail one another. We need help. We need rescuing from the outside, because no matter how hard we try, we can’t fix ourselves. We need hope that we are not left to work ourselves to death trying to be “better people” (whatever that is).
This is what Romans 3:22-23 is getting at when it says, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” We are all the same in our need, in our falling short, in our “fail.”ure. But, thankfully, we are not left to fend for ourselves in futility. We are met by a God who takes our failure, our sin, upon Himself and dies for it on a cross. He then conquers it and offers us life in Himself. Therein lies the beauty of Colossians 2:13-15: “When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the
written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Therefore, I make this proposition: when we hear the word, “fail.” pop out of our mouths, let us recognize that we are the same in our failure, and let it point to Jesus’ power in and victory over our failure. We are never left alone in that failure; He has come to give us light, hope, and full life right in the middle of it.
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