For Whom the Bell Tolls

[HKHaugan]

What it Really Means to be a Disciple

John Stott wrote this prophetic insight 17 years ago:
“As we face the end of the second millennium since Christ, the hearts of most people around us are failing them for fear. It is not the lack of natural resources which is the chief problem, however, but the lack of spiritual and moral resources. Thinking people know that the problems facing us---bewildering in their number, magnitude and complexity -- are beyond us. Only a return to the living God who created us, sustains us and can re-make us through Christ, and a recovery of the authentic Christian faith in its biblical fullness and contemporary relevance, can enable us, with confidence and without fear, to look forward to the Year 2000 AD (John Stott, from his book Authentic Christianity 1995).” I would add “2013 and until the Lord returns.”

Today’s growing population means growing uncertainty, expanding conflict, increasing social pressure becoming even more explosive because of a constantly developing modern technology that makes all experience burst into your presence demanding immediate responses of which no human is capable. We live in an age of media driven 20 second sound bites. Children go from infancy to street-wise losing the in-between formative years. War is in our living room, suffering becomes a jaded ‘so what?’ “It’s not happening in my neighborhood” while gunshots ring out in the ghetto. And not just there.

Individuals are feeling more and more powerless in the face of these forces. What before had taken decades to change is now a day to day volatile issue. The sparks pouring out of this frictional motion are growing at a geometric rate. It’s like watching a car losing its tires and running on its rims showering clouds of sparks. The sparks in us are fear and pride, fear of what might happen and pride that tries to be right without God. Until it stops it will continue on a path to self-destruction. This is the situation that strains our minds, hearts and spirits. Without a moral and spiritual base to believe, trust and in which we can respond faithfully we, as individuals and a society, will be that car running on its rims. We need the spiritual engine and the moral tires to carry this human frame over the bumpy highway of the demands that face us.

What John Stott called for in his statement is the only answer to what we as a human race are seeing on the fast closing horizon of its future, “…Only a return to the living God who created us, sustains us and can re-make us through Christ...” While as disciples of Jesus our future is assured it is that very assurance that can tempt us to complacency. We need to heed His calling which is what the Parable of the Ten Virgins is all about. Our lamps need to be full and burning every next moment.

Ah, but what does a full lamp look like? Oil biblically represents the Holy Spirit with Whom we need to be filled. He is the instantaneous inspiration that gives us confidence to meet circumstance, make choices and respond decisively. He enables us to think Jesus, have Jesus’ attitude and to respond like Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the means by which the Father shares His Son with us. He is the “…deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s Possession… (Eph.1:14).”

When the Towers came down in New York and everybody was running away from the area in panic, firemen and policemen were running toward the calamity trusting in their training, trusting in each other, trusting that when they arrived at the scene the circumstance was not the issue. It was their being equipped to react personally and decisively as a team in spite of the circumstance. It was those moments where the trapped that could be saved were and those heroes that died, died trying.

It was after 9/11 that the term ‘First Responders’ came on the scene. That is what a disciple of Jesus needs to be, a ‘First Responder.’ Every next moment brings the unknown and unpredictable. This is what we were built for. This is what we were created to be like, images of a Creator who is building a Kingdom, a Kingdom of ‘first responders.’ It’s a kingdom of hearts to be like the One Heart, Jesus. It is expanding and we are its disciples. We are the ones called not to run but to be first on the scene, not to wait for someone else but to be the first to react not to hold back but to bold forward.

As disciples we see the fallen world for what it is. As disciples we know the devil and sin have blinded a person who doesn’t know Jesus. What we know because of Him is that everyone is created in God’s image and needs Him to be rescued from the fear and pride that keeps them from responding like Him in whose image they were created. Every next moment we are in the world demands us to be a spiritual ‘first responder.’ Disciples of Jesus are His only ‘first responders’ in the world, responding to the Lord’s call every next moment of our conscious being.

"No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee." (John Donne 1562-1631)