“In saving my life she conferred a value on it. It is a currency I do not know how to spend.” So says Sherlock Holmes in season four of the smash hit BBC TV series. The person to whom he refers is the wife of his companion, John Watson, who has selflessly thrown herself into the path of an assailant’s bullet, saving Sherlock’s life but losing her own. A man whose life is normally driven by reasoning devoid of emotion is deeply troubled.
Such is the power of self-sacrifice to stop us in our tracks and change our lives forever; and all such sacrifice compels us to ask how we may live a life worthy of the price that was paid for it. Sherlock Holmes is at a loss.
For those who are able to see in Jesus the self-sacrifice of God, expending his life on the cross in order that ours might be saved, the answer is simple: to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and to love our neighbours as ourselves.1 In doing so we honour the One who gave his life on our behalf.
Only time will tell what Sherlock Holmes will do!
1Mark 12:30,31
