Why The World Has to Imagine?

The part which attracted my attention, of this closing ceremony of Olympics in London was when late John Lennon appeared on the screen singing his song, 'Imagine'.

John Lennon had started his song with this,

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

John Lennon was a man who search for the truth. His failure of finding the truth made him come out with the song 'God' which said the only person he would want to believe was himself.

Is it really so? In fact John Lennon was so proud at a moment that he said, 'Beatles is bigger than God.' Later, he explained that he simply means their music might have affected the youth more than Christ. This might have been true at the moment and if we see the phenomenon going on even nowadays, young people are more interested in the entertainment than Christ and you might be shocked to see those group includes children from Christian family.

Later on, John regretted what he said, at a time when he was tired of his addiction to drug, he had asked help from one of the most influential evangelists, Oral Roberts by writing to him, 

"The point is this, I want happiness. I don't want to keep on with drugs. Paul told me once, 'You made fun of me for taking drugs, but you will regret it in the end.' Explain to me what Christianity can do for me. Is it phoney? Can He love me? I want out of hell."

Oral Roberts sent him a long response, giving him a copy of his book Miracle of Seed Faith and a detailed explanation of God’s love for him. In the second letter, Roberts said, (excerpts)

I thank God that you see this, John, and finally regret thinking any man or group could be more popular than Jesus. Jesus is the only reality. It is Jesus who said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." So, you see, your statement that because of your hard background you've never wanted to face reality is actually really saying you've never wanted to face our loving Lord. What I want to say, as I tried to say in my other letter, is that Jesus, the true reality, is not hard to face. He said, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." You said, John, that you take drugs because reality frightens you. Remember as you open your life to Jesus, He will take all the fear away and give you peace. Peace that passes all understanding.

Surprisingly, I should say, Imagine is a song with a really important message. It was a expression from the world that it hates religion, country and materialism because these three things had caused pain to so many people. John Lennon wish to imagine that there is this perfect idea, where these three things are gone from the world, and the world is once again in peace because people love each other and are united. And he do realized that this is just a dream but he thought if everyone shared this one similar dream, it might come true.

He might go with a good starting point, but he didn't know that Jesus think rather the same at the idea of people loving each other. It is actually possible for people to love each other with them acknowledged that they are first loved by Christ. And isn't that religion, country and even materialism aren't something that God want for the world? Of course as Christian, we believe there are heaven and hell, we go to church every Sunday, we obey the ten commandments but for the sake of what reason, we are doing these in our lives? What does God really want us to have in mind when we are living our life by prayer and reading Bible? Do we think of Him or just ourselves feeling good for being 'holy'?

This makes me kind of wonder myself, am I living in a religion or in a relationship with Christ? Does Jesus ever attempt to make this whole thing a religion and make his people religious? If we look at the book of Gospel, whether it was healing on the Sabbath (a major taboo in religious circles), dining with sinners or preaching messages of love and forgiveness, Christ didn't always please the religious establishment of His day.

My question was the world has expressed its hurt today(if it isn't, there wouldn't be so much people responded to Beatles' songs and to other artists) and what can Christians do about this, in what way can we tell the world Jesus is the answer to all these pain?

I think one of the reason that people's heart refuse the knock of Christ was they refused to accept the reality. They refused to accept that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. In fact, they doesn't want to admit that the world is sick, they want to be on their own, they want to revive the world themselves. But that could never be done.

In fact, how have we presented Christ to the world, is there any misrepresentation? The moment we couldn't hide our expression when we see a tattoo guy walking into church, the moment we refused to help a widow because she is not a Christian, the moment the rich and poor Christians separate themselves into group, the moment where we all became the priest who passed by on the other side when seeing a man half-dead on the road, after being robbed...... Would it be this attitude that incurred  the doubt of people on God's love?

I think we are victim of our own imperfection and self-reflection has to be made time to time because there is a reason Christian became uptight and hypocrite in world's eyes. But, as the apostle John noted, a key to becoming effective in reaching the lost is this prayer: “He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30, NIV).

resources: John Lennon: One of Jesus' "Biggest Fans"

John Lennon's Born-Again Phase