The Ant and the Grasshopper
(Playing ~ Bach's "Cantata 156")

    A mother of a nine-year-old boy, Mark, received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon.  
It was the teacher from her son's school.  

"Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son's third grade class. Your son did something
that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately."  

Mothers seldom want to hear from their child's teacher in the middle of the day. The mother was uneasy
and nervous by such a beginning to a phone call. "What now?" the mother wondered.  

The teacher continued, "I have been teaching for many years and nothing like this has happened until now. 
This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. As I always do, I tell the story of the ant and
the grasshopper. The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food.  But the grasshopper plays
all summer and does no work.   Then winter comes.  The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. 
So he hops to the ant's house and begins to beg." 

"Please, Mr. Ant, you have much food.  Please let me eat too."

"Now, boys and girls, your job is to write the ending to the story.   Your son, Mark, raised his hand."

"Teacher, may I draw a picture?"  

"Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture.  But first you must write the ending to the story.
The papers came in.  As in all the years past, most of the students said that the ant shared his food
through the winter and both the ant and the grasshopper lived.  

As always, a few children said that the ant said, 'No, Mr. Grasshopper.  You should have  worked in the summer
and not played.  Now, I have just enough food for myself.' "

So the ant lived and the grasshopper died.  

"But your son ended the story in a way different from any other child .... ever.  He wrote,
'So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; the grasshopper lived through the winter.  But the ant died.' "

  "And the picture?  
At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses."

"He gave everything to us so that we might live; but Jesus died."  

~ author unknown

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