Crowds

I caught Coldplay on the HD Cable station the other night. They were live at Clint's old mission hangout: the Isle of Wight.

It was amazing to watch this concert. The crowd was one mass of people as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of thousands of people I'd guess. All of them standing, pumping their fists in the air in unison to the music and most singing along word-for-word.

I wanted to join in. You feel like you want to be there and be apart of something. But I wonder if this is a "great and spacious" concert? It certainly is fleeting and when it was over it was done. You don't have the urge or the urgency to go out and do something meaningful. It doesn't make you feel like you want to be a better person. It is something just for that moment - cooler than heck, don't get me wrong - but just for a minute or two.

I think of other gatherings that have happened and some yet to come that are much different in nature and outcome.

When Christ came to the American Continent after His resurrection, a large crowd had gathered. The entire crowd got to approach the Savior, one-by-one, and feel the imprints of the nails in His hands and feet and the scar from the sword in His side. I imagine this crowd wasn't jumping up and down and pumping their fists. I imagine it so quiet you could hear an ancient bone-pin drop. The evidence of the effect it had on the people was that the whole society lived in righteousness and peace for 400 years afterward.

Then there was the crowd that gathered to listen to King Benjamin's farewell address. So converted were they all by being in this crowd on this day and the next that none had a dispostion to do evil ever again. Of course, some eventually did but the remembering of this event years later spawned an unbroken chain of righteous leadership that went on for 500 years and 9 generations: From Alma to Alma to Helaman, to Helaman to Nephi to Nephi to Nephi to Amos to Amos & Ammoron!

Then there is the crowd that will gather at Adam-Ondi-Ahman toward the end of the pre-millennial earth. Everyone to have ever held priesthood keys will gather at this place, give an accounting, and turn over their keys to Adam, who will turn over all of the keys over to the Savior. That's going to have a lasting effect on all of earth. Maybe that's what gives the people the boost to be righteous for the thousand years of the millennium.

There are crowds and there are crowds. Some are cool and some are way cool.