"Run, Tom Warwick, run!"

The Word for today:
Esther 4

mark this:  Esther 4:13-16
Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"
Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, "Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish."


Actors don't move me, so I've watched very few movies. But a movie scene I'll never forget is the final scene from "Camelot."

King Arthur is on a battlefield, and knows he is doomed to defeat. Those whom he most loved and trusted have deceived him. His own death is a certainty. Camelot is about to end.

But then, something wonderful happens. A young boy, Tom Warwick, unnoticed until that moment, suddenly comes forward to tell Arthur that he shares his dream of Camelot; that he has listened, and understood, and that he has the courage to keep the dream alive.

King Arthur suddenly realized his dream could still come true. His hope lay in young people like Tom Warwick who would carry the dream forward.  So King Arthur called out,
"Tom Warwick, if you believe, do not die on this battlefield; because Camelot would die with you. As your king I command you, run! Keep the dream alive! Run Tom Warwick, run!"

Tom left the battlefield but he could hear in the distance King Arthur's commands:
"Ask every person if he has heard the story, And tell it strong and clear if he has not. Say it out with love and joy! Run, Tom Warwick, run! Keep the dream alive."

***

Esther was willing to die to save her people:
If I perish, I perish…

But Jesus asks few of us to die, because the very heart of the gospel message is that Jesus did the dying for us.  Jesus asks most of us to live to tell his story. That was the last thing he asked his disciples to do:
"When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." It was not long after he said this that he was taken up into the sky while they were watching, and he disappeared into a cloud.  (Acts 1:8-9)

So run, and live.  Ask every person if he has heard the story.  Tell it strong and clear if he has not:

Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that the herald may run with it.   (Habakkuk 2:2)