My Favorite Hero
by Oliver Carlos
When I was a little boy, I used to see green five-peso paper bills. For the oldies and for my contemporaries, you know what I’m talking about. But for the millennials and the Gen Z, this may be something new to your ears. Yes, five pesos was not a coin, it used to be a paper bill!
What interests me the most about this bill is the image at the back. I wasn’t a schoolboy yet at that time, so I asked my Mommy what’s it all about. She then explained it to me just like the other fairy tales and fables she used to tell me and my siblings.
“The guy at the front of the P5 bill is Andres Bonifacio, he’s a brave man. His birthday is just after your birthday. He fought battles to set us free from the Spanish colonizers. The image at the back shows how Bonifacio recruited people to join the war. They used their blood as ink to sign their names on a paper,” my Mommy narrated.
I was so fascinated by my Mommy’s story and that started my interest in learning more about Philippine heroes and our struggle for freedom as a nation. Little did I know then that Philippine History would be my bread-and-butter. I eventually became a history professor.
Later on in my life, I learned a bigger story about blood and freedom. I learned about a bigger character who fought in a bigger battlefield and shed his blood to give us the biggest freedom we ever needed.
I’m talking about Jesus, who died a sacrificial death on the cross, pouring out his blood so that anyone who makes him his hero, will have eternal life. Jesus won for us the greatest freedom- victory over the power of sin and death.
“Anyone can be made right with God by the free gift of His loving-favor. It is Jesus Christ Who bought them with His blood and made them free from their sins. God gave Jesus Christ to the world. People’s sins can be forgiven through the blood of Christ when they put their trust in Him…” Romans 3:24–25a (NLV)
Sin is our greatest oppressor. We badly needed to be saved from its power, which leads to eternal death.
Romans 3:23 (TLB) says, “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal;”
Romans 6:23 (NLV) added, “You get what is coming to you when you sin. It is death! But God’s free gift is life that lasts forever. It is given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It should have been us dying on the cross because of our sin. But Jesus substituted himself for us, so that we would be free and have eternal life. Let’s make that choice today of surrendering our sins to Jesus, and accepting the new life he has purchased for us on the cross.
