Around twelve years ago, we, imitating Anna Hazare, wore boat shaped hats upside down, waved the Indian tri-colour, organized candlelight vigils, sat outside the houses of MPs and ministers, screamed our lungs out with slogans against corruption, and felt good as a government relented and decided to introduce a bill against corruption.
Over two thousand years ago, another man called Jesus shot to fame as he brought in an anti-sin movement. He did not go to the authorities with his bill, he did not try fasting to death threatening the government that if they did not change he would kill himself, he did not have TV anchors going berserk whenever he wanted a sip of water. In fact he would have gone unnoticed except the fact that His movement was not about the government changing but the people changing themselves.
His Anti-Sin Movement was about people. Not the people in power, not the middle class, not just the poor, but every single person alive whether blind, deaf, short, corrupt, good, bad, a prostitute, an adulteress, everybody. “You have to change.” was His message. A couple of months ago, I was called to speak at a meeting. I went out of sheer curiosity and found to my chagrin it was a protest meeting against cellular towers. Towers for your cell phones to get signals. Speaker after speaker spoke against these towers, which could do so much damage to your brain, your ears, your mouth, and all parts of the body, “Pull down the towers!” shouted the people and a cry was raised. When I was asked to speak, I pulled a table in front of me. “Now,” I told the people, “All of you place your cell phones here!”
The people looked at me hesitatingly.
“Why?” asked a young boy even as he spoke into his phone, even as he stared at me. “Because,” I said, “If you want the mobile companies to know they are doing wrong, you need to first stop using the signals they are sending you! Tell them you will not be their customers anymore! If you want them to change, you have to change first by deciding not to use mobiles anymore!” Nobody placed his phone on the table. No one wanted to make the sacrifice of giving up his phone, of being the change. When Jesus introduced the anti-sin bill on earth, He knew that man by himself was not capable of change, that to change they would have to harness themselves to God’s power, but to avail that power Jesus would have to be the sacrifice for their sin, only then would people be able to link to the power of their Father and be transformed.
The anti-sin bill is yours for the asking; no hunger strikes needed, no fasts unto death or tamashas on TV, because Jesus died to make the Bill yours..!
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