Its more than life and death

With four more matches to play, the world cup is all but over. Nations came and went. Some just came to play, some came for much more. Someone once said of cricket, “It’s not a matter of life and death, its more than that”. The same could be said of some of the teams and nations represented in this competition.

The Dutch team somehow managed to assemble an entourage of 100,000 people who joined their cavalcade through the streets of Cape Town. The Argentineans played their drums. The South Africans trumpeted their Vuvuzelas. Others sported their national colors on their faces and in their waved banners.

The picture of a Mohican warrior supporting his own team, captures the spirit of the occasion well enough. Not far below the smile, joy and innocence of the moment is a warrior mentality. Maybe the advancement of the human race has tamed much of that feistiness that set nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom in past eras.

Yet, when we remember how much war and suffering still taints our world and the fact that the last great war was settled a mere sixty years ago, we dare not fool our selves into thinking that we have tamed the beast forever.

If winning on the football fields and other sporting stages of the world is more than life and death, then how far would peoples and nations be willing to go to defend their pride and individual identities?

Then again, I am aware that the world is converging. Borders and national identities are blurring as the world moves toward a singularity. There is no doubt that a new world order is on the cards. From a purely pragmatic perspective I have to say it is unavoidable, because we need a collective approach to the problems of our world. After all, the decimation of Amazon rain forests affects all of us, as does pollution in China, the melting of the polar ice sheets, global energy resources, the accumulation of space debris, pandemic diseases and the world economy. So, a new centralized, socialistic world power is inevitable.

Against that backdrop is an alternative society that potentially will have its own parallel economy, its own constitution and its own cultural norms. It will also have its own king. That society or nation, comprises that holy people who are citizens of the kingdom of God. The fault lines that will forever separate the world from the church and draw the battle lines between both, are deepening. The thunder of heaven will surely bring that to a head in its right time. It will finally separate light from darkness.

The question I have for you, is, in this great social phenomenon, is your struggle more than life and death or is it just another big game of life? I suggest that too many still perceive it as a game, still play church, still pay lip service to truth and are still holding on to their personal dreams, ambitions or fantasies with scant regard for the global and eternal significance of this age.

What do you think?

(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net