Archives for March 24, 2015

Devotion

A teammate and classmate of mine at the U.S. Naval Academy served as a Marine Corps officer in Afghanistan in the 2000s. During his first tour of duty, he talked about being in an area of so much uncertainty and hostility and suffering—both towards him and the everyday citizens who lived there. No one was safe; it seemed that everyone there was surrounded by adversaries. Yet my friend volunteered to go back for a second tour—where he was killed in combat. My friend wrote a letter to his family, explaining his reasoning for returning. He wrote, "If not me, then who?" That is how I think about Christ, entering into a hostile world to save a suffering people who could not save themselves. Christ, seeing our reality and need to be saved from it, perhaps said, "If not me, then who?"