St. Michael was visiting with Jesus after His triumphant return from His ministry on earth.
"Well, Lord," he asked, "Did you accomplish your mission?"
Jesus smiled. "Yes," he replied, "I did."
"Does every human on earth now know the Good News of Your salvation?" St. Michael pressed.
Jesus shook His head. "No, not every human," He explained. "Actually, not many humans. Only a small group of people in Palestine."
St. Michael frowned, worried. "Well, Lord," he asked. "What is Your plan B?"
Jesus shook His head again. "No plan B," he explained with a smile. "They're people of faith, and I believe they will share that faith, and those people will share their faith, and eventually My message will spread."
This story actually made me get tears in my eyes. Today, we have easy access to hundreds of Bibles. We can get online and quickly look up any verse we want to in most languages. We can go to any number of churches on Sundays; we have our pick.
Yet it is only through the faith of a very, very small group of people in Palestine that we have these things. A tiny minority of Jews in Jesus' time believed His message. They devoted their lives to traveling across the world, spreading His message and sharing their faith. Wherever they went, small groups of faithful, likeminded believers sprang up, but they were always small groups and they were always in the minority. Yet those people, and then other people, and then still more people kept sharing their faith. And so the gospel spread.
It spread until most of Europe was Christian. The Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches preserved the message through the Dark Ages when it would have otherwise been lost. And soon, those Christians started taking the message to the New World. To North America, to South America, to Asia, to Africa. They shared their faith.
It all started with a tiny group of believers in Palestine 2,000 years ago.
If they had chosen not to share their faith, where would we be now? Where would you be? Certainly still in darkness, living a life of sin and far apart from God.
You are sitting in the United States of America in 2011 with your faith today, because someone who'd never heard of you shared his faith 2,000 years ago in a small Jewish state ruled by the Roman empire.
If those people had chosen not to tell other people about the good news, where would we be? They could have kept quiet about it. They could have rejoiced at the good news and lived their lives quietly, helping the poor and being loving to their neighbors, never pushing their beliefs on anyone but just silently living out good lives according to the Gospel. But when they died, their faith would have died with them. And where would we have been?
How can you share your faith today? It can be as simple as telling the homeless man you give food to, that you are doing this because you are a Christian. It can be as simple as sending a nice note with a Bible verse to someone who is hurting or mourning. You don't have to be obnoxious or rude to share your faith. But you should share it.
Think about it.
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