If you're doing it right, Christianity is a tough religion. Just look at the brutal history of Christian martyrs. It was like that from the beginning. At first, we were shunned and arrested.
Then, when the powers that be figured out we weren’t going anywhere, they killed us. Saint Stephen was the first one stoned for the team. Saul, who would later be Saint Paul, watched Stephan get pelted to death.
It didn’t get any better from there. Nero used us as human lamps to light his games in the colosseum or his parties. And that’s when we weren’t the entertainment by being fed to the lions. I saw this reenactment once, where Christians were led into the floor of the colosseum; men and women of all ages. Some of the women carrying their newborns. Didn’t matter. The lions prowled around and fed to a roaring pagan crowd.
The bodies of Christ’s faithful piled up over the centuries and still do today.
In the last decade, I clicked shot by shot as a man was hanged in Iran for preaching the Gospel. Before they put a black hood over his face, he was beaming. His bright gaze and smile on the eternity that awaited him.
I once saw this black and white photo of a priest, a man with a rifle beside him, listening intently. The caption said this was the last confession that the priest ever heard. Once done, he was shot.
No, Christianity isn’t for the faint of heart.
But this isn’t the hard part.
For me, the hard part is that Jesus tells us to love those persecuting us in all these instances. Wait, what?
Yup, love your enemies.
Because Christ died for all men, for all time, each man and by that, every man and woman is created for God.
I gave a talk sometime last year and brought up Saint Maria Goretti.
Maria was an Italian twelve-year-old peasant girl that captured the leering eye of the farmer’s son, Alessandro. He tried to rape Maria while her family was working in the field. Maria fought him, telling him what he wanted to do was sinful, and God did not will it, and paid for her refusal. Alessandro stabbed her with an awl fourteen times.
She lived for another twenty-four hours, but before she died, she’s reported to have said that her greatest desire was to see Alessandro in heaven.
I remember the audible gasp from this crowd of teens. Cancel culture was on the horizon. Revenge is best served cold. We live the “Chicago Way,” even here in the burbs.
Love your enemies.
A couple of years ago, news broke that a Dallas Police Officer, Amber Guyger, accidentally walked into the wrong apartment and shot the man living there, Botham Jean.
She was found guilty the other day. Shortly after the verdict, a local pastor found the nearest news microphone and praised the verdict. The way he talked, at least to me, lacked charity.
This was a tragedy. Pure and simple.
But as Christians, we make a bold claim. God will bring about goodness from tragedy and suffering. Often, were not able to see this goodness in action.
Today, we were able to in some way.
During the sentencing phase, Botham Jean’s brother took the stand. And despite the suffering and the hurt Amber Guyger brought him and his family, he forgave her and loved her (“as a person,”).
It’s very rare these days, sadly, that we see this kind of love: the love of Christ.