In the Company of Saints....

As a Christian, I am heir to a religious tradition wherein thousands of my fellow believers have died, sometimes violently, for our faith. While, unlike Islam, the Bible nowhere encourages some kind of violent martyrdom, it does record the lives of many who willingly died as martyrs.

What they believed to be the truth was more important to them than their own lives, and they held that truth until their last breath. They found something worth living and dieing for. Christianity, for the first centuries of its existence was a minor religion of little importance to the societies around it. Early believers were easy targets for political or religious leaders who needed a scapegoat. Persecution of early Christians was quite common. It was partially the example of some of these extraordinary individuals that caused the world to take notice of this small new faith.

In one story of the ‘purges’ of Christians in early Rome, believers were rounded up and killed for sport in the colosseum. One 19-year old young woman was led out into the floor of the colosseum where wild lions were to be released. The thousands of spectators laughed and jeered in anticipation of her ‘punishment’. She remained calm...she held her faith in God. Her lack of fear quieted some of the laughter. She began to sing hymns as the lions were released. While the lions tore her apart, the laughter and jeers fell silent. She believed. After witnessing her courage and faith it is reported that thousands of people converted. In the chapter on faith, Hebrews 11, the writer says the world is not worthy of such people. He was right.

In our time, we Christians have it very easy…at least in America. While we endure some criticism of our faith, we are allowed to worship any way we see fit. There are no Christians being rounded up to be tortured or put into prisons. Perhaps because of that, many of us have become complacent. We believe…because it’s easy. The biggest threat we face is not people intent on killing us. The biggest threat we face today is non-Christians we like and want to be accepted by. Many of us compromise our faith to be accepted. We don’t want to be ‘un-cool’ after all! That’s an even more deadly threat to our spiritual lives than facing death for what we believe… Sometimes finding something worth dieing for is easier than living for it.

We all know stories of people who say they believe certain things only to find out when push comes to shove that they really believed them only while it was convenient. How many of us have something that we believe so completely that we are prepared to die for that belief? How many of us believe so completely that we are prepared to live an uncompromising life? How many of us are prepared to be ridiculed for what we believe? To live a life of faith, a life of hope in Christ’s return may one day call on us to sacrifice our lives. What it calls on us to do now is to be the salt of the earth, the light on top of the hill. We can’t do that if we’re doing what everyone else is doing just to fit in.

How many of us, I wonder, really believe enough to lay down our lives? How many of us believe enough to commit our lives to living it? What's worth dying for...is well worth living for.