In his book, "The Gospel According to Starbucks," Leonard Sweet* tells a story about a man, a Franciscan priest, who put his love on the line for another. He had what Sweet calls,"holy boldness." His name was Maximilian Kolbe. He became known as "The Man for Others."
The man Maximilian
In the summer of 1941, a prisoner escaped from Kolbe's cell block at Auschwitz. Normally, when one person escaped from a cell block, it effected the others as well. The guards would randomly select 10 prisoners. They would do one of two things: (1) Line them up to be shot for everyone to witness or (2) Send them to an underground bunker to be starved, severely beaten, and executed.
When Father Kolbe heard that one of 10 selected was a husband and a father, he acted with "holy boldness". Maximilian Kolbe, the one who would become known as "The Man for Others", took the selected prisoners place in the lineup and was sent to the starvation bunker. Two weeks later he was killed via lethal injection of acid.
THE MAN JESUS
Before Maximilian Kolbe, there was Jesus Christ, "THE MAN for others". He took our place in the lineup. "We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put His love on the line for us by offering His Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him." (Romans 5:7-8;MSG)
Be the man...Be the woman!
May you and I be the "man" or the "woman" for "others". Let our cry today be, "Holy Boldness!" Let us put "our love on the line" for someone today who can't pay us back. Exist for someone else besides yourself!
*The Gospel According to Starbucks," Leonard Sweet, page 89
