Lives Laid Down

Postman’s Park in central London contains the Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, a series plaques commemorating ordinary people who laid down their lives for someone else. Here are just a few of the many individuals commemorated:

Mary Rogers Stewardess of the Stella Mar 30 1899 Self sacrificed by giving up her life belt and voluntarily going down in the sinking ship	Alice Ayres Daughter of a bricklayer’s labourer Who by intrepid conduct saved 3 children from a burning house in Union Street Borough at the cost of her own young life
Edmund Emery Passenger Leapt from a Thames steamboat to rescue a child and was drowned	Samuel Lowdell Bargeman Drowned when rescuing a boy at Blackfriars Feb 25 1887 – He had saved two other lives
George Lee Fireman At a fire in Clerkenwell Carried an unconscious girl to the Escape falling six times and died of his injuries	John Cranmer Cambridge Aged 23 a clerk in the London County Council Who was drowned near Ostend whilst saving the life of a stranger and a foreigner
Solomon Galaman Aged 11 died of injuries Sept 6 1901 after saving his little brother from being run over in Commercial Street “Mother I saved him but I could not save myself.”	Ellen Donovan of Lincoln Court Great Wild Street Rushed into a burning house to save a neighbours children and perished in the flames
Daniel Pemberton Aged 61 Foreman L.S.W.R. Surprised by a train when gauging the line hurled his mate out of the track saving his life at the cost of his own	Edward Morris Aged 10 Bathing in the Grand Junction Canal Sacrificed his life to help his sinking companion
P.C. Percy Edwin Cook Metropolitan Police Voluntarily descended high-tension chamber at Kensington to rescue two workmen overcome by poisonous gas	John Clinton Aged 10 Who was drowned near London Bridge in trying to save a companion younger than himself

The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park commemorates ordinary people who died saving the lives of others and who might otherwise have been forgotten. Postman’s Park was built on St Botolph’s Aldersgate old churchyard when painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts collaborated with the church’s vicar in 1898.

It’s humbling to stand there and read of the ultimate sacrifice that these people made, often for someone they did not know.

It makes us ask the question: Would we lay down our lives for someone we loved, would we die for a family member or a friend?

I imagine that most of us agree: we would.

Would we give our life for a stranger?

Probably, is the thought, their life is most definitely worth saving.

But would we lay down our life for someone who we know has done great wrong?

This trips us, we stop and wonder, we’re less sure. Would we?

And yet this is what Jesus did.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

But now comes the question: what do we see sin to be? Do we see it as something small, as eating chocolate when we’ve been told we shouldn’t? Do we see it as something beyond us, only those things that are reaally bad, like murder or terrorism?

When Jesus was tormented before his crucifixion he was blindfolded, his attackers wished for the Son of God to be at their mercy. Although we may deny it, we can be same. We want to live how we want to, to limit God, we are sinners and we want to blindfold God. We do this in different ways, by shutting out God or pretending that He does not exist, by ignoring God, by turning away from Him. We need rescuing from God’s anger, which means we need to be saved.

Jesus died for sinners, he died for those who blindfolded him, hit him, tortured him, he died for us. And this is a unique kind of sacrifice. God demonstrated his own love for us by sending his son to die for us. We often fail to realise the truth of his love for us. But he laid down his life for us, he demonstrated his love by giving his life on our behalf.

God demonstrated his love for me: whilst I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. Whilst we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And if we are shown love and mercy, if someone reaches out to saves us, like those commemorated in Postman’s Park, and gives their life for the sake of our own, we wouldn’t let them die in vain, we would let them save us. Will we let Jesus save us?