Ashton Ellis
Staff Writer
With violence continuing to emanate from the Middle East, some may wonder whether a suicide bomber is making the same type of sacrifice as a first responder to a tragedy. He is not. If he were, the scope of the term sacrifice would broaden to include both the Sept.11 hijackers and the first responders who rushed into the crumbling buildings to save those in need. This is wrong. Sacrifice is not killing others for a cause. It is giving yourself so that others may live.
Most people remember the Trojans as being on the losing end of a Greek invasion. Yet the Hellenic poet Homer idolizes not the victorious Greeks — instead preferring to relay the failing fortunes of the heroic Hector, prince of Troy. It is Hector who leads the defense of the besieged city. It is Hector who leaves behind a wife and son to battle the crazed Achilles. And it is Hector who embodies the sacrificial spirit renowned in a warrior laying down his life so that his family could survive.
Centuries later, it was the Greeks’ turn to be invaded. Badly beaten and needing a delaying tactic, the Greeks’ only hope was to retreat and regroup. The only problem was choosing who to leave behind. Spartan King Leonides volunteered to lead a force of a few hundred against an onrushing Persian army of thousands. Dying to the last man, Leonides and his soldiers gave themselves fully to the cause of Greek preservation. Because of their sacrifice, Greece, and Western civilization, was saved.
Sacrifice can take many forms. In Hector’s case it meant buying enough time for his family to escape death. For Leonides, it meant giving his countrymen an opportunity to avoid enslavement. For both, it meant dying so that others could live. By most conventional criteria, the sacrifices of Hector and Leonides were failures. Troy was sacked and no Spartan walked out of Thermopylae. Yet success in each case did not equate to defeating the enemy. Instead, success meant buying time.
As it so often does, the Bible gives the best example of sacrifice. Foreshadowing His passion, Christ tells His disciples that “Greater love hath no man than this; than he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). True to His word, Christ submitted to death. Though, unlike the acts of Hector and Leonides, the full meaning of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was more than a delaying tactic. He was not merely buying time for those He loved. Christ’s resurrection defeated sin and liberated mankind from spiritual enslavement for all time. He won, and because of His success over death, each and every person can reap the rewards.
Compare Christ’s act of selfless love to the selfish act of a suicide bomber. No one benefits when a person voluntarily ends her life with the sole purpose of killing as many people as possible. The only thing that results is a net loss in the human family. There is no martyr because there is no outside authority ordering apostasy or death. There is no hero because there is no good deed.
No one can hope to have the kind of success Christ enjoys, nor are we likely to lose our lives in battle. We can all prepare ourselves for a day when we may be called upon to make a unique sacrifice. For some, it will be answering the call of a country in need.
For others, it will be an act of obedience to faith, conscience, or both. In whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, let us all aspire to make the most out of the opportunity.
09-21-2006