Mosh Pit Tribute Volunteer

When I was in middle school, I had the great privilege of being able to go to the school with my cousin, Tyrell, who is a year older than I am.  Tyrell’s family is all boys and my family is all boys.  We were all about the same ages too.  We had great fun when we were growing up doing fun things that boys do like playing cops and robbers, playing steal the flag, playing football and basketball, climbing around the lumber yard at night, catching tadpoles and pollywogs, and all sorts of other great things.  His family moved a lot, so I was only in the same school as he and his brothers for a couple of years. 

At that time, mosh pits were becoming a big thing.  Mostly they were popular at concerts (I think, how would I know, I never went to one).  A mosh pit—if you didn’t know—is a large group of people with the center cleared out and then a few people are put into the middle and pushed around like pinballs and they bounce, or are pushed, off the edges of the human walls.  Sometimes I have heard it is more of a crazy, wild dance zone at a concert by the stage.  Either way, I am talking about the first type that I mentioned.

One day as lunch was nearing an end, all the students were waiting to go back to class, and somehow a large empty space formed in the center of the large cheering mob of students—a mosh pit had formed!  I was getting closer to see this thing that I had been hearing about close up.  I even came to the inner edge to see it and even to bounce the human pinballs off of the human walls.  In the chaos, I was pushed into the “pit.”  I was surprised, and I didn’t really like it—but there wasn’t really any way out.  Whenever I tried to get out, I was bounced off of the human wall.  It didn’t take long before the vice principal and teachers started breaking it up.  They grabbed the five of us that were in the pit by the shoulder and started hauling us off to the principal’s office.  I was stunned, because I had never been to the principal’s office for anything bad.  As I was being pulled away by the shoulder, my cousin Tyrell stepped in, and gently tapped the vice principle by the shoulder and said, “It wasn’t his fault.  It was my fault, take me instead.”  Tyrell, of course, hadn’t actually been at fault in the least.  He just stepped in and took the blame.  I think he may have visited the principal’s office a little more regularly than I did.  I was amazed at my newly regained freedom and at my cousin’s selfless act.

I don’t think I had thought of this experience for a good 20+ years, but for some reason it popped into my head around Easter time this year.  I meant to write this then, but better late than never I hope.  It had never occurred to me that what Tyrell did for me that day was very similar to what Jesus Christ did for us.  Christ took the blame for our wrongs without being in the least bit at fault.  As I remembered back on this experience, and remembered the relief that I felt from being saved from going to the principle’s office and the punishment that might come with it, it gave me new gratitude for the Savior’s sacrifice for all of us (including me).  It made it seem nearer and not like it happened around two thousand years ago.  I am grateful for the experience, for my cousin Tyrell for taking both the blame, for God for bringing this experience back to my mind, and for the fresh new way the Spirit inspired me to think about it.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

How about you?  Have you ever been saved by someone who sacrificed themselves selflessly for you?