Tuesday 23rd January 2007
‘Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life’ Revelation 2:10
February is the month when the Church remembers several martyrs, and looking through the calendar I was struck by the astonishing variety that the people listed represented. We have, for instance, the ‘martyrs of Japan’ on 6 February – intrepid Catholic missionaries who went to the other end of the world to preach the gospel in the 16th century, and were horribly slaughtered by their would-be converts.
There is the (possibly legendary?) Valentine on 14 February, who is said to have died in Rome in the third century. Then, much nearer our time, there is the great Ugandan archbishop Janani Luwum on 17 February, killed for opposing the cruelties and injustices of President Amin in 1977. Finally on 23 February we remember one of the first great Christian martyrs, Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, burnt to death for his confession of Christ.
A ‘martyr’ is literally a ‘witness’ – one word covers both in the Greek of the New Testament. The implication is that anyone, anywhere, who is prepared bear witness to Christ and the gospel must accept that it will cost something – perhaps even his or her life.
The verse at the head of this column underlines this truth. To be truly ‘faithful’ one must be so ‘until death’. It was a warning Jesus gave to his disciples almost as soon as they had confessed their belief in him as the Messiah. ‘If any want to become my followers’, he said, ‘let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ (Mark 9:34). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued, there is no such thing as ‘cheap grace’.
Christians shouldn’t seek martyrdom, whether it’s a matter of life or death or more simply popular opposition or ridicule. On the other hand, a milk-and-water kind of faith, which buckles at the first sign of criticism or disagreement, has little to offer in a world of robustly held beliefs and ideas.
We have a wonderful heritage to honour. In many parts of the world Christians are bravely and responsibly holding the faith in the face of physical and psychological persecution. Of course it’s nice to be popular, but sometimes it’s right (if less pleasant) to stand firm against what we believe to be wrong, unjust and untrue. It’s unlikely we’ll get fed to the lions or burnt at the stake, but to do what we believe is right will probably cost us something. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not worth fighting for any way!