When I heard those words at church this morning, I was sure that the topic was going to be freedom in Christ thanks to the sacrifice He made on the cross. While that message is the basis of the Christian life and faith and would have been great to listen to, I'm thankful that I was wrong because the message reached me in a much more powerful way than a repetition of the story of the cross would have because it gave me a better understanding and deeper appreciation for Jesus' sacrifice.
Today's message wasn't a typical church sermon. It was in the form of a video, a collection of interviews with various leaders from my church who each reported on the life and death of a particular martyr whose story impacted their lives. The twelve disciples; Narcissa Whitman; Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Anne Askew; Jim Elliot; Martin Luther King, Jr. These men and women dedicated their lives to the spread of the gospel, to making disciples, to living for Christ, even if it meant dying for Him as well.
For some reason the story of Jim Elliot spoke to me the most. Maybe it was because I'd heard it before, or maybe because I'd seen The End of the Spear, a movie based on the story of his martyrdom. Whatever the reason, the story set in motion a thought process that brought me to an amazing realization.
Too often we think of martyrs as people who gave up their lives, and nothing more. We think of the incredible determination they must have had, their unstoppable devotion to God. Sure, we thank God for giving them the strength to persevere to the end, and Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:10 that he "delight[s] in... persecutions." But more often than not, we're impressed that a mere human being could be so devoted to something or someone that he would die for it. We don't think about the joy they must have had at knowing that God was finally calling them home. We don't think about the encouragement God had set them apart to be for the entire Christian world. We wonder at how they could have been thinking about anything as the fire flickered and climbed up their legs, as their bodies were stretched and their bones pulled out of joint, as their flesh was peeled away, as each strand of the whip dug into their backs...
Or as each stroke of the hammer drove the nails deeper into their hands and feet. We focus on the martyrs of history, but we forget about the Martyr. And no, I'm not talking about Stephen (Acts 7:54-8:1). I'm talking about the original Martyr, Jesus Christ. We forget that He was even a martyr at all. We only think of Him as a sacrifice. We get all emotional when we hear stories of modern martyrs and anyone who has died for their faith in the last 2000 years... except for Jesus. We talk about His death and resurrection as if it was no big deal. We brush off the words "Jesus died for you" as if it were just dust rather than a direct wound to the heart. We forget that He was a human just like us—of course, He was also God, but when we say that He left His throne in heaven, we mean that He gave up His power as God and resorted to human communion with God through prayer. While Jesus was indeed God, He wanted to relate to us as much as possible so that we could see that everything He did would be possible for us through God, so He only used His power as God by praying to the Father and asking Him to perform the miracles He did. Through prayer, if it's God's will for the moment, we can do everything that Jesus did. But that's not the point. Jesus was human. He was born in Bethlehem to poor Nazarene parents. He grew up learning the Scriptures like a good Jewish boy, and then He went around teaching like the prophets of the Old Testament. He knew His mission and He was so strongly devoted to what He believed in that He went willingly with the guards when they came to arrest Him. He hung on the cross by His own will, and He hung there until He died. Yes, He was killed as a sacrifice to cover our sins, but like any martyr, He died first and foremost for what He believed in: that "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). He loved the people He had come to minister to. He loved serving them. He had come into His mission field, the world, to be with them—with us—and to tell them that there is a God who loves them. And He was killed for His beliefs. Jesus DIED for us! Think about that.
When a person is martyred, that's the end of his life on earth, but his influence never dies. While his work is done, his story continues to work. But Jesus differed in this way: After He died His story would continue to work, but His own work wasn't finished yet either. He rose from the dead—let me say that again: He rose from the dead!—and walked with His disciples, telling them what they should do in the coming days, and even years, as His disciples. The disciples had given up everything for Him, leaving their families and their jobs in order to follow the Man they thought would be the Savior of Israel, and He had been killed. They must have been devastated because they were left with nothing but a bad reputation with the religious leaders. Some returned to their homes to rebuild their lives, to start working again so they could earn a living and piece together everything they had lost. But then news came from Mary Magdalene and the mother of Jesus that their Rabbi had risen! Just as Lazarus had been raised from the dead, Jesus was now alive and well after having been dead for three days. He was walking around dressed in white, looking as if He had never suffered apart from the holes in His hands and feet and in His side, and even the holes were like jewels, signs of His victory over sin and death. And then He promised His disciples that He would send His Spirit to live in the disciples to guide them every step of their lives. He ascended into heaven, but He had not left His disciples alone. And then the Spirit came to them, and eleven of the twelve disciples (including Matthias, Judas' replacement) were martyred for their teachings. Actually, all twelve disciples were going to be martyred, but John the Beloved survived his death sentence: he was boiled alive in hot oil and was released unharmed to die a natural death years later.
Stories of martyrs have always drawn some kind of emotional response from me, but Jesus' crucifixion seemed to lack that kind of power for me. But now I realize that every martyr points to the example that Christ gave us. So I hope that, from now on, you and I will both be able to look at martyr stories and remember our Savior on His cross: Jesus, the original Martyr. This Memorial Day weekend, let's remember the Man who gave His life so that we could be free from the power of sin and death.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." ~ Galatians 5:1
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