WEBVTT 00:00.900 --> 00:02.200 In the name of Jesus. Amen. 00:05.600 --> 00:08.500 Be faithful unto death 00:09.800 --> 00:13.300 and I will give you the Crown of Life. 00:15.000 --> 00:23.100 This prophetic word to the church in Smyrna was written for us but not 00:23.100 --> 00:24.000 exactly 00:24.000 --> 00:27.700 written to us. In many ways 00:27.700 --> 00:33.600 our circumstances are very different from the church in Smyrna. 00:34.600 --> 00:41.900 Most of us are middle-class safe and enjoy amazing freedom to follow 00:41.900 --> 00:43.800 Jesus not facing suffering 00:44.900 --> 00:47.500 or prison or worse. 00:49.600 --> 00:56.000 Be faithful unto death says Jesus. How long is that? 00:57.500 --> 00:59.200 Until the end of the week 00:59.200 --> 01:07.000 maybe, if you are a Christian in Smyrna about the year, 100 AD you 01:07.000 --> 01:11.600 face harsh penalty for bearing the name of Christ. 01:12.500 --> 01:15.000 The letter from Pliny to Emperor 01:15.000 --> 01:22.900 Trajan comes from about the same time and not far away from Smyrna. And 01:22.900 --> 01:29.800 Pliny, a Roman Governor reports matter of a factually, about executing 01:29.800 --> 01:37.800 people who obstinately persisted in being Christians. Or of torturing 01:38.200 --> 01:45.200 people accused of following Jesus as a kind of routine interrogation 01:45.200 --> 01:45.900 method. 01:47.700 --> 01:54.400 Pliny's approach was standard operating procedure in the early second 01:54.400 --> 01:55.000 century 01:55.000 --> 02:02.500 Roman Empire. Christians new That the cost of being a disciple of 02:02.500 --> 02:08.600 Jesus could be high and painful and swift. 02:09.900 --> 02:18.900 And by the thousands, they followed Jesus and praised 02:19.000 --> 02:22.300 Jesus and talked about Jesus, 02:23.000 --> 02:30.400 anyway. Most of them experienced, real material, poverty of a kind 02:30.400 --> 02:37.000 that we can barely imagine. Genuine suffering was a daily possibility 02:37.000 --> 02:42.500 in the form of beatings and torture and death. Getting thrown into 02:42.500 --> 02:49.400 prison, was not a theoretical risk and the whole legal system was 02:49.400 --> 02:50.900 stacked against them. 02:53.100 --> 02:59.700 Now, Christianity in our time has perhaps lost 03:00.000 --> 03:06.800 some of the cultural prestige and influence it had until recently. 03:07.900 --> 03:13.500 But most believers today, especially here in America are not in the 03:13.500 --> 03:18.100 same boat as the church in 2nd Century Smyrna. 03:19.700 --> 03:28.200 Maybe the tomorrow's that lie before us hold in store suffering and 03:28.200 --> 03:34.100 real danger for the sake of Jesus that our fathers and mothers did not 03:34.100 --> 03:40.400 face. Maybe outright persecution of Christ 03:40.400 --> 03:44.300 faithful ones will come crashing down on us too. 03:45.700 --> 03:52.400 Maybe the cultural tide has indeed turned and we who bear the name of 03:52.400 --> 03:55.100 Jesus will have to suffer 03:56.300 --> 03:57.600 and be imprisoned 03:58.700 --> 03:59.900 and be killed. 04:02.500 --> 04:03.600 But maybe not. 04:06.400 --> 04:10.400 Maybe the long gray twilight 04:10.400 --> 04:16.000 we live in this twilight of distraction and vague tolerance will 04:16.000 --> 04:19.899 continue for years and decades to come. 04:22.000 --> 04:26.000 It isn't exactly persecution 04:26.600 --> 04:32.900 if people around us think we're kind of silly and hold to some 04:32.900 --> 04:35.400 ridiculous religious ideas. 04:36.900 --> 04:42.400 You don't get enlisted in the noble, Army of Martyrs if your culture 04:42.600 --> 04:47.100 takes the church about as seriously as a Renaissance fair. 04:48.800 --> 04:52.500 And you can't be a jerk and pick a fight 04:53.900 --> 04:56.800 and then claim you're being persecuted. 04:58.100 --> 05:05.500 And we would rather be persecuted, then ignored. Bettered be martyred 05:05.500 --> 05:14.000 than irrelevant or so we tell ourselves. And so we embroider every 05:14.000 --> 05:20.200 difficulty and we imagine we face more danger than we do. 05:22.000 --> 05:23.000 Tribulation. 05:24.900 --> 05:28.600 What do we know about tribulation? Poverty. 05:29.200 --> 05:35.100 Well, maybe, if you measure on a sliding scale, but trust me, even 05:35.200 --> 05:37.500 American Seminary students 05:39.500 --> 05:45.400 are in the top 10% of global affluence. Suffering. 05:46.600 --> 05:48.200 We often think we're suffering 05:48.200 --> 05:52.600 if we are deprived of some of our customary privileges and comforts, 05:52.800 --> 05:57.200 or if the Wi-Fi is out. Prison. 05:59.100 --> 05:59.500 Mmm. 06:01.500 --> 06:01.900 Well 06:03.300 --> 06:07.100 I would say probably not more than twenty percent of you will spend 06:07.100 --> 06:08.400 much time in prison. 06:12.000 --> 06:15.000 And I'm not sure it's the devil who will put you there. 06:17.400 --> 06:22.200 The late Roman Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis, 06:22.200 --> 06:23.800 George famously said. 06:23.900 --> 06:25.700 I will die in my bed. 06:26.700 --> 06:29.600 My successor will die in prison. 06:30.100 --> 06:34.000 And his successor will be martyred in the Public Square. 06:36.700 --> 06:44.400 You still hear his dire prediction invoked as a diagnosis of the bleak 06:44.400 --> 06:54.200 and dangerous present and future of the church. But so far, it isn't 06:54.200 --> 06:54.900 working out 06:54.900 --> 06:56.200 exactly the way 06:56.200 --> 07:03.900 Cardinal George saw it. His successor now in office, Cardinal Blaze 07:04.400 --> 07:05.300 Cupich. 07:06.400 --> 07:07.900 Hasn't been imprisoned yet. 07:09.300 --> 07:13.700 And he is currently best known for implementing the Pope's 07:14.200 --> 07:20.300 restrictions on using the pre-Vatican 2 Latin mass. 07:21.200 --> 07:23.100 Now, anything is possible 07:24.200 --> 07:28.500 but things will have to change pretty quickly in Chicago. 07:28.600 --> 07:33.800 If the 73 your old Archbishop is literally going to die in prison. 07:36.700 --> 07:43.400 In other words, Cardinal George may have exaggerated the darkness 07:43.400 --> 07:50.200 we face in our time and place. We tend to overstate our own troubles. 07:51.100 --> 07:57.300 To stretch every difficulty, including perhaps those difficulties of 07:57.300 --> 08:04.800 our own making to match the apocalyptic extremes of ultimate struggle. 08:06.600 --> 08:12.800 Because such hyperbole makes us feel more important and more heroic 08:13.500 --> 08:14.600 than we really are. 08:17.200 --> 08:22.900 In the early church, there was a real thirst for martyrdom. 08:24.700 --> 08:32.200 Polycarp was by tradition, a pupil of John, the Evangelist, and then 08:32.600 --> 08:36.200 Bishop right there in Smyrna in the second century. 08:38.600 --> 08:42.600 He was burned or they tried to burn him and then stabbed with a spear 08:42.700 --> 08:44.000 when he was an old man. 08:46.300 --> 08:53.000 Ignatius of Antioch was taken to Rome to face a martyr's death being 08:53.000 --> 08:55.700 ripped apart by wild animals. 08:57.700 --> 08:59.800 He didn't want anyone to intervene 09:00.000 --> 09:05.400 on his behalf or try to stop this gruesome sentence from being carried 09:05.400 --> 09:11.800 out. He wanted nothing to come between him and glorious martyrdom. 09:15.800 --> 09:18.100 Some Christians today 09:19.600 --> 09:25.200 sound as if they kind of look forward to a new era of martyrdom 09:26.200 --> 09:27.900 for the American Church. 09:29.400 --> 09:30.100 Not me. 09:33.000 --> 09:38.400 I'm pretty sure I would crumpled like a paper umbrella in Hurricane 09:38.400 --> 09:39.000 Ian. 09:40.400 --> 09:46.700 If somebody pointed a gun at me and asked if I was a Christian. I pray 09:47.100 --> 09:50.000 that nothing like that ever happens to me 09:51.000 --> 09:53.500 or to the people I love or to you. 09:55.600 --> 10:02.300 It might, of course it could, it is certainly true that Christians are 10:02.300 --> 10:06.800 suffering for the gospel in many places around the world today. 10:07.800 --> 10:12.700 I pray that if it comes to that God gives me Grace and strength to 10:12.700 --> 10:15.600 remain faithful in the face of it. 10:16.900 --> 10:21.900 But we don't pray for persecution to demonstrate the strength of our 10:21.900 --> 10:22.500 faith. 10:23.500 --> 10:29.500 We pray that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life 10:30.400 --> 10:33.700 Godly and dignified in every way. 10:35.300 --> 10:40.800 You see the point isn't how you die, 10:43.100 --> 10:44.500 but how you live. 10:45.500 --> 10:48.000 From now until then 10:49.900 --> 10:52.600 be faithful unto death. 10:53.900 --> 10:58.000 Isn't meant to ignite a thirst for glorious martyrdom. 10:58.900 --> 11:06.400 But rather to nourish your life of patient, confident , martyria, 11:07.000 --> 11:15.400 witness to who Jesus is and what he has done for as long as it takes 11:16.300 --> 11:18.200 as long as he gives us. 11:19.600 --> 11:27.300 He is the first and the last, he is the one who started all this, by 11:27.300 --> 11:33.600 his life and death and resurrection and he is the one who stands 11:33.600 --> 11:34.800 alive. 11:36.600 --> 11:44.500 At the end the goal the telos of whatever light and momentary 11:44.500 --> 11:51.900 struggles, we go through on our way to follow him and be with him. 11:53.400 --> 11:59.400 I will give you the Crown of Life says this Jesus. 12:00.000 --> 12:02.300 Yes, he will. 12:05.800 --> 12:08.800 Dead men don't give us life. 12:10.800 --> 12:16.000 Only the one who is the first and the last, the one who died and came 12:16.000 --> 12:18.700 to life can do that. 12:18.800 --> 12:22.000 And that is exactly what he promises 12:23.900 --> 12:25.700 in 2nd Century Smyrna 12:27.800 --> 12:32.200 and where ever believing in Jesus takes you 12:33.300 --> 12:35.100 in the 21st century. 12:37.000 --> 12:37.500 Amen. 12:37.000 --> 12:37.500 Amen. 12:38.100 --> 12:39.200 The peace of God 12:39.200 --> 12:40.900 which passes all understanding 12:40.900 --> 12:43.800 keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 12:44.800 --> 12:45.200 Amen.