What do you stand for?

DAILY BYTE

There’s a piece of homespun wisdom that goes like this, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

On the 15th April 1989 a student led civil resistance movement began on Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People’s Republic of China. The demonstrations were sparked by the death of a senior Communist Party official who had supported the students’ call for political reform in China. The resistance movement quickly gained momentum as tens of thousands of students occupied Tiananmen Square, many of them embarking on a hunger strike to publicize their cause.

Seven weeks later, the Premier ordered the army to clear Tiananmen Square of protestors. On the 4th June, tanks and troops moved into the streets of Beijing, firing and bulldozing their way through Tiananmen Square. No-one knows for sure how many people were killed. Estimates range from a couple of hundred to several thousand.

The day after this bloodbath, the 5th June 1989, a column of tanks was driving through Tiananmen Square. Suddenly, a lone figure ran out into the street and defiantly stood in the path of the oncoming tanks, forcing them to stop. The moment was captured in a photograph that has become one of the iconic images of the Tiananmen Square protests.

No-one knows the identity of this ‘tank man’.

No-one knows what exactly prompted him to risk his life in this reckless gesture of defiance.

No-one knows what happened to him after he was pulled from the street by people in the crowd.

But in that moment, as he courageously stands there in the path of those tanks because of what he believed, in that moment he is so much more than just a solitary, anonymous, Chinese student, longing for reform in his country. He stands there as a living embodiment of human integrity, a reminder of what is possible for us all when the time comes for us to make a stand for what we know is right.

What do you stand for?

PRAY AS YOU GO

Lord, help me today to stand for what I know is true and right. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

John 2:13-17

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’