When I think of the boldness of Jesus' leadership, my mind begins to think of the Sermon on the Mount in Chapter 5 of Matthew. Jesus taught with such courage, like nothing anyone ever heard. The context of the story is that Jesus had just asked his disciples to come follow Him. Which was followed by healings as he walked through Galilee to a mountain. As He saw people gather on the mountain, He sat down and began to teach on things such as the Fulfillment of the Law, Murder, Adultery, Loving enemies, prayer and many other topics. I am blown away by Jesus and the boldness he lived out. You see, if you put yourself as one of the people listening to Jesus on the mountainside that day. Not one of them knew what Jesus was going to do on the cross, or had really any clue that he was the Messiah. They were just sitting there listening to this guy talk about hot topics of the day.
As he taught, I am sure some agreed and some disagreed with all the topics that he said. However, Jesus was fearless in his approach. Now let's flip it around and put it into present day perspective. If I asked you to go down to the street corner and talk about certain hot topics like abortion, racism, politics, marriage among other topics and a group of strangers would randomly walk up, some agree and some disagree. Would you most likely do it??? Many would probably say no, reason is that we are often fearful of what others will think of us, or our thoughts on those topics. We are scared of criticism and opinions from us that it often times paralyzes us from stepping out of the crowd.
I am reminded of a story about a little monk named Telemachus who lived in the 4th century. One day, while tending his garden and praying he felt a nudge to go to Rome, so he set out on foot. Some weeks later, weary from his journey, he arrived in Rome about the time of a great festival. The little man followed the crowd surging through the streets into the Colosseum. He saw the gladiators standing before the Emperor and proclaiming, "We who are about to die salute you." Then Telemachus realized that these men were going to fight to the death for the entertainment of the cheering crowd. So he cried out in a loud voice, "In the name of Christ, Stop!" Yet the games began, so he pushed his way through the crowd, climbed over the wall and dropped onto the floor of the arena. The entire Colosseum watched this tiny figure rushing toward the gladiators, crying, "In the name of Christ, STOP !!!" The gladiators thought it was part of the show and began laughing. But in a few moments, they realized it was not part of the show, and then the crowd became angry. Telemachus stood his ground, insistently pleading with the gladiators to stop their bloody show, when one of them plunged a sword into the saint's body. He fell to the sand. As he was dying, his last words were, "In the name of Christ, STOP!!!"
Then a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood there looking at the tiny Jesus follower lying there dead. A hush fell over the Colosseum. Way up in the upper rows, a man stood and made his way to the exit. Others followed. In dead silence, one by one, everyone left the Colosseum. The year was 404; and that day saw the last battle to the death between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Telemachus' martyrdom initiated an historic ban on gladiator fights by the Roman Emperor Honorius. Never again in the great stadium did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd. One tiny man's bold voice — one voice — reshaped Roman history, and saved thousands of lives, by fearlessly proclaiming the truth in God's name!
We never know what the future holds if we don't strive to be bold. Our boldness might create history, alter a generation or change someone's life. We must strive to have boldness, like Jesus did. I encourage you, do something out of your comfort zone and who knows what might come out of it.