It was a normal Sunday. My family and I at church, the message was being preached; when my mind began to wander a bit after hearing a sentence that the pastor spoke. I do not remember what he said exactly at this moment, but I do remember the train of thoughts and the eventual revelation that followed.
What I do remember about the statement made was that it had to do with the parables of Jesus, in which He speaks about the value and urgency of the gospel. The women looking for the coin, and the man that sells everything and buys a field that in fact holds something more valuable than all he owned. I have grown up with these parables, and so often times I need to be reminded of the depth of these timeless teachings. These stories evoked a memory of the last scene in one of my favorite historic films, “Schindler`s List”.
In this final scene, Oskar Schindler is being met by the +1,200 Jews that he was able to save from death at the hands of the Nazi regime. He saved them by buying their freedom as hired workers. Essentially selling almost everything he had in order to purchase their freedom and protection. At this moment he is overtaken with grief because of how many more people he could have gotten out had he had the resources. In the scenes leading up to this we seem him frantically trying to find things he could sell in order to save as many people as possible. He was a powerful and influential business man and member of the Nazi party (out of business profitability, but not in ideals) at the beginning of the film, and by the end of it he is a broken man trying to sell the clothes off of his back in order to save even a single more person.
I realized that I do not have that heart. Of course the horror of the holocaust is not something I am currently living through, and the context surely is different…but what about the urgency? C.S. Lewis said, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” This is a concept that so often we forget. We forget that the good news of the gospel is also a ransom. A ransom that cost the ultimate price in order to bring the ultimate life. I want my heart to be one of urgency towards reaching as many people as I can. Right now it isn`t. Of course I dwell on the gospel and have a burden to share it with others….but am I desperate about reaching people. I pray that in time we will all have this same heart.