Tattoos seem to have become omnipresent. They appear in all manner of designs and significance. Today I saw a new one. The wearer announced that it was to commemorate the bombing at the Boston Marathon. My first reaction was one of bewilderment that someone would want to become a walking billboard for such a shameful event. It was a tawdry inhumane act of cowardliness. Why would someone want to get up each morning, look in the mirror and remember such a despicable thing?
Then I remembered the millions of people that wear a cross around their necks. Millions of churches are decorated with crosses. A cross is a remembrance of the most despicable act in all of human history. It exceeds that of beheadings on YouTube. It reminds us that the so-called decent religious leadership took a gentle man who healed lepers, gave sight to the blind, raised a little girl back to life and did another thousand acts of kindness and they stripped Him bare not only of His clothes but the skin on His back. They yanked out handfuls of His beard and then nailed Him to a tree. This would have been bad enough had it only been a mere man. But this gentle man was the one who thousands of years before had said, “Let there be light.” This was the Creator of all that is.
Since I have no cross tattooed on my upper arm nor do I have a golden cross to wear about my neck I must do something even better to commemorate this human atrocity. I will instead dedicate my total being to being like Him. Being the most honest, most forthright, most caring person I can be is the best way possible to honor and remember Him.
Written by Roger Bothell on January 21, 2015
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org