The famous anthropologist Margaret Mead was once asked this question: What was the earliest sign of civilization in any given culture? The questioner expected the answer to be a clay pot or perhaps a fish hook or grinding stone. Her answer was “a healed femur.” The femur, of course, is the leg bone above the knee.[*] Mead explained that no healed femurs are found where the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, reigns. A healed femur shows that someone cared. Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting and gathering until the leg healed. The evidence of compassion, she said, is the first sign of civilization. I would contend that it is also the first sign of the work of Christ in the life of a Christian.
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Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com , June 2002
[*] The original illustration said it was the bone below the knee, which is incorrect.