Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: February 2005

The mark of courage

Centuries ago, when the world beyond the Garden of Eden was clean and new, humankind was busy spoiling it. A family feud erupted, tempers boiled over and Abel lay dead on the ground - felled by his bother's hand. Cain, we are told, received a mark on his body, so that no-one would murder the murderer, thereby compounding the sin.

It is interesting, albeit fruitless, to speculate on what the mark might have been. Clearly it was distinctive enough to mark Cain out wherever he went - but what was it like? In the centuries since then, human beings have borne all kinds of marks, each telling their own stories. Some bear a number tattooed on their wrists - the mark of a survivor from a Nazi death camp. Others bear the marks of war or the scars of torture. Many in Saddam Hussein's Iraq bore such scars. Some wear them with pride - the evidence of an indomitable will to survive. Others would rather they were hidden.

In Iraq this month, there was a new mark on display - a finger dipped in blue-black permanent ink. Some held it aloft for the world's cameras to see. It was evidence of their freedom to vote, and a defiant gesture to the insurgents who told them not to. Those who see the pictures and read the stories in this country should not underestimate the courage needed to display such a mark.

Christians in general, particularly in the West, eschew a visible mark of their faith. They do not have the shaved head of the Buddhist, or the bindi of the Hindu, or the plaited hair of the Hasidic Jew. However, the New Testament abounds with images which imply the need for Christians to be visible. We are to be like light in a dark world, like Jesus in a Godless world, and like a city set on a hill, its light spilling over the surrounding countryside.

If we were called on today to wear an obvious and indelible mark as evidence of our allegiance to Jesus - would we be prepared to do it?