Since 2011, 259 people have died taking ‘selfies’ … photos of themselves. The deaths were varied; being hit by trains or cars, drowned, burned by fires, falling down stairs, and even being attacked by animals. Today people are so self-absorbed that they miss the big picture and what is going on around them. This is nothing new. Jesus faced something similar!
31 Jesus went on to say, “To what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: “‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.’…” (Luke 7:31-32)
Jesus told them to their face that they were like marketplace children who are so busy playing their little games they don’t see the lives around them. He went on to tell them that they were only interested in others if it was about them. The people Jesus spoke of were so self-centred that they had lost the big picture. What is the big picture that they missed? It was that there are others around them living and dying needing the gospel.
To be a Christian is to keep the big picture clear and to forget ourselves. It is seen in our selfless conversations; in our diaries that make time and room for others who are not our family or friends; in our prayers which are marked by angst for the salvation of others; in our regular sabbaths when we have rest in the power of Christ. Let’s make and grow disciples of Christ in 2018.
Denis Oliver