Faithful Wounds

Once there were some high school students standing around talking. One young man, a senior in high school, suggested that it would be cool to go out to see a new movie that was well known to be full of sexual immorality and foul language and crass humor. One of the other young men, a freshman, immediately replied with a sharp fist to his jaw. Stunned and fighting back tears, the senior licked his now bloodied lip and asked, “What was that for?” And the freshman answered, “So you can remember not say such a foolish thing again.” Their teacher had seen the scuffle from across the room, and now arrived on the scene. The young man who had delivered the punch admitted what he had done and said, “I just didn’t like what he said so I punched him.” The teacher thought it was very uncharacteristic for this young man to just randomly punch people for things they said he didn’t like, but when pressed, the boy refused to say anything more. So without anything else to go on, the teacher gave the offending freshman detention after school. And I tell you the truth: the freshman who bloodied his older friend’s lip went home justified. For faithful are the wounds of a friend and greater love hath no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.