The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says,
"What's the vision? What's the big idea?"

I open my mouth and words come out like this...

The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.

And they are free from materialism.
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday
and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn't even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix;
the way the West was won.

They are mobile like the wind;
they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil
and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free, yet they are slaves
of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity
long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive,
every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps,
their Satan games.

This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day
its soldiers choose to lose
that they might one day win
the great "Well done"
of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical
on Monday morning
as Sunday night.

They don't need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting
again and again:
"COME ON!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.

And the army is disciplined.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his
comrades at arms.
The tattoo on their backs boasts
"For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their
upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?

And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries,
sulphuric tears and with great barrow loads of
laughter!

Waiting.
Watching:
24 - 7 - 365.

Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their
precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels,
fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve at late night
parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously
attractive (on the inside).
On the outside?
They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes:
to communicate and celebrate
but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives,
swap seats with the man on death row;
guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights
and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses Jesus.
(He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don't you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdos!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud,
skyscrapers bow,
mountains are dwarfed
by these children of another dimension.

Their prayers summon the hounds of
heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.

How do I know?
Because this is
the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble,
whispered,
faithless prayer
invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great
"Amen!"
from countless angels,
from heroes of the faith,
from Christ himself.

And he is the original dreamer,
the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.

______________________________

(from The Vision and The Vow by Pete Greig)

And to this all I can add is that total dedication to Jesus is not limited to one generation- never has been, never will be. Just because I'm on the downward slide towards 40 does not mean that I'm washed up on the shore, that God no longer has a purpose or a plan for me or others that are my age. Eventually, the current generation that is getting so much attention from "prophetic" ministers and the "emergent" church, that is insisting that old ways are passe and new wineskins are needed, that is getting millions of church budget and book publisher marketing dollars thrown its way- the "new generation" will become the "previous generation" pretty dang quick. And then they will finally realize that it isn't about how old you are or how young you are but what you do about what Jesus did. And indeed is still doing. There won't be a new "Jesus Movement" but there will be a new move of Jesus, which in reality won't be new but simply a fresh retelling of the old, old story.

"Don't trust anyone over thirty" was Abbie Hoffman's gig. It no longer applies.