Actually, I didn't count them, just estimated the number on seeing the driveway covered with bloody paw prints. I was astonished at what was going on. Zach, the second or third in a line of 5 or 6 dogs that we've had since we came back, was a black Labrador we'd gotten when he was only a few weeks old. Now he had grown a lot, and was putting on quite a performance.
Our neighbors had topped the 8-foot wall between our houses with broken glass embedded in cement, a common deterrent for thieves. Next door, their dog was about a quarter the size of Zach, and loved to be out on the flat roof...where Zach could see him and join in their verbal sparring, barking their throats dry, non-stop. That's where the little dog was now, and he seemed to relish baiting Zach, knowing he was out of reach.
Zach, apparently, decided to try proving his foe wrong. All the bloody paw prints covering the driveway were the result of him jumping as high as he could, somehow managing to just barely reach the top of the wall, where, of course, he cut the pads of his front paws on the pieces of broken glass. What was hard to understand was why he kept on leaping and barking, in spite of being wounded. He either didn't really realize what was happening to his paws, or he didn't really care!
We managed to get him settled down, and I stopped the bleeding, and cleaned and bandaged his paws. (We couldn't afford a vet.) His heart was racing wildly, and even to someone who is not a vet, it was obvious he was going into shock. Thinking I had done as much as I could, I left him to rest, and went inside.
A few minutes later I was called outside again. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Zach had gotten up and was starting his side of the argument all over again! There he was, leaping up and trying once more to reach the little dog on the roof! He had hurt himself in a vain effort to prove he was bigger and better, (besides, this was HIS territory!) and now all he could think about was continuing the confrontation. It didn't matter that he was only making his wounds worse. We finally got him to stop, and stay stopped!
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What an illustration of the way we human beings act sometimes! We have to prove our point, no matter what, even if we pay a price to do it. And we often make things worse, rather than better. On top of that, we can end up hurting ourselves much more than the other person...and even then, sometimes we don't stop! Pride makes us do stupid things sometimes, doesn't it?
But there was one Man who showed us that battles should be waged against Evil, not against each other. He bled, but not out of pride. His battle wounds were won in destroying the Enemy of our souls. He did prove a point: God's love is so great that Jesus chose to bleed to death in order to give us Life. His humility and utter selflessness, his willingness to be wounded even though He was innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever, gave Him the greatest victory in all of history.
John the Baptist said of Jesus, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" (John 1:29)
Then He added the final, conclusive, essential piece of evidence for his side of the contention: the Resurrection! Amazing!
Have a blessed Easter! Join me next week.
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