Urgency

Today was a good day. I had a wonderful time with my mother, my uncle and my neice at church.

Getting ready to go to church I felt a little strange this morning. Why did I want to get all dressed up? And what is this with me dressing up all the time lately. I am worried that I have been conditioned by my environment toward preppiness. It kinda scares me. I went to church in a town where half the people are wearing levis and hoodies to church and I did not feel right going out without dressing up in my suitpants and sportcoat. Is that weird? I am not sure if it is or isnt?

I thought the service was ok. Not great but ok. The sermon was a little scattered but I got something very meaningful out of it. In particular, it made me think about the urgency of Matthew 28. The resurrection account.

The angel commands them to hurry and to get where they need to be next. They run. At the end they are told to "go into all the world and make disciples". Then I watched Sahara. Again...the emphasis on urgency of moments and situations.

Now there are people I know who make everything a crisis and every situation an urgent one. They are passionate and dramatic about something needing to be done right now. And, most of the time those people are using their emergency to provoke your urgent response for their benefit.

But there are some things that we would claim as priorities in our life that need more time in our "urgent" box, but we push them down the road and we push them away because...well...because we think we can.

Christ's message of the kingdom of God is an urgent one. It was urgent to Jesus. It should be urgent to those who choose to follow and obey him. Not necessarily urgent in the sense that we pressure and coerce people into believing and living like we do out of fear and manipulation. But urgent in the sense that it is todays news and todays traffic report. The message of Jesus is something people need to hear right now. The kingdom life is something people need to see right now.

Furthermore, the resurrection is something we need to live in light of right now. Right now we have hope. Right now we can live with purpose.

Ok...now I am sounding like a Van Halen song so I will stop...