If Jesus Showed Up Today

          If Jesus showed up at your school today and asked you to follow him what would you do? If Jesus walked by your house and said, “Come, follow me,” would you?

Just what would it mean to follow Jesus today? What would it mean today to drop what you’re doing now and follow Jesus? Who would Jesus call today, you…me…your neighbor?

What would it mean, what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus the Christ? What do we have to repent of? What do we need to change? Are we ready to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Do we believe that the world cares about the nearness of the kingdom of God? Are we willing to risk following Jesus when he calls us?

Listen to this poem by Rev. Roddy Hamilton:

Will you follow me he asked—and we never hesitated because it was an adventure, and we never tired of those, the risk, the randomness, the gamble.

Will you follow me he asked—and we dropped everything that we held, and which held us dear at the prospect of fresh bait and rich pickings at his side.

Will you follow me he asked—and we defied convention and conviction, traded waves for dusty roads to weather new storms.

Much later, will you still follow me, he asked—and we hesitated because it had become hard. He spoke in riddles, tangled our thoughts like well-worn nets and slipped through our hands like wriggling fish.

And then he talked of death and of betrayal, and we realized that it was no longer an adventure but a one-way path to danger we were on. And we watched friends turn away, unwilling to forfeit any more for one who spoke of sacrifice as the only way, and cursed our disbelief as the work of the devil.

And yet we could not turn back. Whether out of fear or out of habit or out of curiosity we stayed with him, harboring our doubts, hedging our bets, trying hard to trust in the one for whom we had so readily, so carelessly abandoned our security, for there was nowhere else to go but onwards. There was nothing else to do but finish this journey. There was no-one else but he who chose us. Will you still follow me, he asked. And we did.

Friends, Jesus is still calling disciples to follow him today. Will you answer his call to drop everything and follow him?