A few days ago, I had written about how I understand what the cross was for Jesus. Then I thought about how to communicate the same idea to children. What I wrote then was basically three things.
The first thing to do is to take a stand for justice. Look, in history, those who took a stand for justice, especially if their decisions, positions, etc. interfered with the selfish interests of a society or community - they were all persecuted or killed.
The second is to speak out the truth, come what may. Throughout history, we see such individuals too being persecuted or done away with.
The third is love. When we say 'love', we are not just talking here about personal love - love for your family or friends. Love can be also universal. That's a higher plane of it. Love for everyone: to become everything to everyone. Then we will be going beyond our own little circle. Beyond our family, our village, and our community, our clan, our tribe, we must desire the well-being, advancement, and the good of all. Naturally, this will cause great distress to those who consider their clan, tribe and community to be the greatest values. They surely will oppose us, isolate us when they see that we won't yield to their opposition, and eliminate us when they see that isolating doesn't work.
We see these things most clearly happening in the life of Jesus. Let alone Jesus. Take Abraham Lincoln for that matter; or take Mahatma Gandhi for instance; or take Martin Luther King Jr.; take for instance Yitzhak Rabin or Patrice Lumumba or Benigno Aquino; or the many Christian missionaries who have been assassinated in many parts of the world. Didn’t they all stand for justice, for truth, for universal love, for a more inclusive world? Then one thing becomes clear to us. The cross means an unwavering stand for truth, justice, and universal love. In short, Jesus tells the world that taking up a stance on these values is the basis for becoming his disciples.
