The Decatur Celebration - Faces in the Crowd

We discovered the Famous Idaho Truck!

Yesterday evening, we attended the annual Decatur Celebration.  For those of you not from here, this is a very large annual free street festival with lots of food, drink and live music.  Every year, I like to make sure I get an elephant ear, and walk around to the various booths of people selling wares.  This year, we had fun with the potato truck (see photo).

Last night, we went purposely for the screening and awards ceremony of the amateur "21 Film Festival," put on by a local credit union, Land of Lincoln.  This is the seventh year of the contest, and I was fascinated by the imagination and talent of the various film makers.  There was one film maker of all 21 that used the contest to showcase the power of God, and was deliberate in the images of the Bible and scripture he included.  One.  The others ranged from harmless silliness to dark thoughts found in young teens.  I was struck by how many films had a suicide theme or a theme of quiet desperation.

After the awards were handed out, we decided to go back into the Celebration.  It was night time now, and there were multitudes of people milling about, listening to music, laughing, talking and generally congregating.  I looked deeper into their faces, and I noticed.  There were many people experiencing the same level of desperation the filmmakers depicted in their films.  They all seemed to be seeking something, anything to fill the emptiness inside.

I became sad as I looked out in the thousands of people outside that night.  These are people who are blind to what they need, and yet desperately needing it.  These are the kind of people Jesus specifically ministered to.  He did not worry about their economic class, or their outward appearance. He touched them all.  The passage below is one my favorites to use to illustrate just how much he cared about each person in the throng of the crowds of people.

     Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowded around him.  A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding.  She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but had gotten no better.  In fact, she had gotten worse.  She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe.  For she thought to herself, "If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed." Immediately, the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.   

     Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my robe?" 

     His disciples said to him, "Look at this crowd pressing around you.  How can you ask, 'Who touched me?'" 

     But he kept on looking around to see who had done it.  Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. 

     And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.  Your suffering is over."(Mark 5:24-34 NLT)

We need to learn this lesson from Jesus.  We need to be able to walk among crowds of people, and still be aware of and care about each one.  Each person is an individual apart from the crowd; an individual with specific needs.  These are the ones we need to reach out to.  

Enjoy the Celebration today and tomorrow.  Just make sure to pray when God leads you to pray.