WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.425 --> 00:00:04.925 She awoke and she had for many days now. 2 00:00:05.625 --> 00:00:10.125 To that slimy feeling of sweat, encrusted flesh 3 00:00:10.425 --> 00:00:18.525 that was her 22 year old body. Stiff and tired from another night 4 00:00:18.525 --> 00:00:22.825 sleeping on the bare unwashed stones. 5 00:00:24.125 --> 00:00:28.225 And in the sweltering heat of that North African morning 6 00:00:28.525 --> 00:00:32.625 she was aware of the crowd of other bodies around her. 7 00:00:33.825 --> 00:00:39.225 The other prisoners men and women alike crammed that made up the 8 00:00:39.225 --> 00:00:42.225 world of her confinement. 9 00:00:44.525 --> 00:00:52.525 She glanced up and through the tiny opening along the roof, line of 10 00:00:52.525 --> 00:00:59.925 the cell streamed the only light and the only breath of fresh air that 11 00:00:59.925 --> 00:01:06.725 blessed that room with a hint that there was another world beyond 12 00:01:06.825 --> 00:01:07.825 those walls. 13 00:01:10.325 --> 00:01:13.625 Somewhere out there was her, baby. 14 00:01:14.725 --> 00:01:16.425 Her infant son 15 00:01:16.425 --> 00:01:21.325 that just yesterday was nursing contented at her breast. 16 00:01:22.425 --> 00:01:29.325 Now, taken away from her and entrusted to the care of her father. 17 00:01:30.525 --> 00:01:31.725 Her father. 18 00:01:33.525 --> 00:01:40.425 How often he had begged her to show some care for him and her husband 19 00:01:40.425 --> 00:01:41.725 and her baby, son. 20 00:01:41.925 --> 00:01:44.525 Just say the words, 21 00:01:45.025 --> 00:01:53.525 he begged. Just say what they want you to say and you can make all this 22 00:01:53.525 --> 00:01:54.525 go away. 23 00:01:56.425 --> 00:02:02.025 You can be free, rejoin, your husband care for your son. 24 00:02:02.925 --> 00:02:06.425 Just say the words. 25 00:02:10.625 --> 00:02:13.825 Could it really be that easy? 26 00:02:15.625 --> 00:02:21.325 On the day of her trial, the judge Hilarianus had clearly wanted 27 00:02:21.325 --> 00:02:27.225 to acquit her. He gave her every opportunity to recant even pleaded 28 00:02:27.225 --> 00:02:33.425 with her, to heed her father and have pity on her infant son. 29 00:02:34.725 --> 00:02:37.525 Just say the words. 30 00:02:39.925 --> 00:02:41.225 But could she? 31 00:02:43.025 --> 00:02:47.125 To deny our faith was not just to deny Christ. 32 00:02:48.125 --> 00:02:55.625 It was also to deny herself. To give up the identity and the hope and 33 00:02:55.725 --> 00:03:01.325 everything that her new found faith in Jesus had given her. 34 00:03:03.925 --> 00:03:10.425 But as much as she longed to embrace her husband and hold her child 35 00:03:11.925 --> 00:03:12.925 she could not. 36 00:03:15.325 --> 00:03:16.825 Words matter. 37 00:03:18.725 --> 00:03:20.025 Truth matters. 38 00:03:21.825 --> 00:03:23.625 Faith matters. 39 00:03:25.925 --> 00:03:29.225 So she told the judge Hilarianus 40 00:03:32.025 --> 00:03:33.025 I will not 41 00:03:34.225 --> 00:03:35.225 I'm a Christian. 42 00:03:37.725 --> 00:03:43.325 So, she was sent back to the cells to that stone floor 43 00:03:43.325 --> 00:03:49.625 that was her bed. To the Heat, and the overcrowding to await her day to 44 00:03:49.625 --> 00:03:52.225 face the beast in the arena. 45 00:03:54.725 --> 00:03:59.225 The days that followed her fellow Christian prisoner Secundulus 46 00:03:59.425 --> 00:04:03.425 died, waiting in that very cell with them. 47 00:04:04.825 --> 00:04:11.825 Just two days ago, her servant Felicitas imprisoned with her for 48 00:04:11.825 --> 00:04:12.725 Christ 49 00:04:13.825 --> 00:04:18.325 gave birth to an infant daughter in that very cell. 50 00:04:20.525 --> 00:04:22.925 The newborn was taken away. 51 00:04:25.125 --> 00:04:32.025 Now today, it was their turn to be taken away. 52 00:04:33.425 --> 00:04:39.625 She made one last entry in her diary recording a dream that she had 53 00:04:39.625 --> 00:04:43.025 the night before about how she would have to struggle against the 54 00:04:43.025 --> 00:04:43.625 devil 55 00:04:43.825 --> 00:04:49.225 but was assured that God would give her the victory. 56 00:04:51.125 --> 00:04:55.925 Then she put down her pen and left others 57 00:04:56.125 --> 00:04:58.125 to tell the end of the story. 58 00:05:01.225 --> 00:05:02.225 Into the arena 59 00:05:02.325 --> 00:05:03.225 they were lead. 60 00:05:04.425 --> 00:05:06.125 Perpetua sang 61 00:05:06.125 --> 00:05:11.925 a song like the many she had sung in the cell in the days of her 62 00:05:11.925 --> 00:05:17.525 imprisonment, but the crowd was enraged and they demanded that the 63 00:05:17.525 --> 00:05:19.225 prisoners be beaten. 64 00:05:20.025 --> 00:05:24.625 So they were stripped naked and bound with a net in the middle of the 65 00:05:24.625 --> 00:05:30.125 arena and the animals came and the women faced a wild heifer that had 66 00:05:30.125 --> 00:05:34.125 been whipped into its own rage. It charged Perpetua 67 00:05:34.225 --> 00:05:37.425 was knocked down Felicitas was trampled. 68 00:05:39.125 --> 00:05:42.325 Both were bloodied and injured. 69 00:05:44.825 --> 00:05:48.325 But Perpetua struggled to her feet 70 00:05:49.425 --> 00:05:51.725 and helped felicitous up. 71 00:05:54.925 --> 00:05:56.725 Having survived 72 00:05:56.725 --> 00:06:02.425 the first round, they were taken from the arena to be cleaned up and 73 00:06:02.425 --> 00:06:04.825 prepared for the second round. 74 00:06:06.325 --> 00:06:12.625 This time it was to be the Gladiators. And as they huddled together in 75 00:06:12.625 --> 00:06:19.025 the center of that arena, the small band of believers gave one 76 00:06:19.025 --> 00:06:21.025 another, the kiss of peace. 77 00:06:27.425 --> 00:06:30.325 When the dust settled, they were gone. 78 00:06:31.925 --> 00:06:34.925 Perpetua, Felicitas, 79 00:06:36.525 --> 00:06:37.325 Saturus. 80 00:06:39.425 --> 00:06:40.925 We don't know how many others. 81 00:06:42.325 --> 00:06:46.825 At the end, one of the soldiers had cut Perpetua's throat. 82 00:06:48.025 --> 00:06:53.825 So that the voice that had confessed, Jesus and that had so enraged 83 00:06:53.825 --> 00:06:55.325 the crowd by singing 84 00:06:55.525 --> 00:06:59.325 a simple Psalm was quiet now. 85 00:07:01.725 --> 00:07:07.125 No, no, that's not quite right. 86 00:07:08.425 --> 00:07:15.825 The blood that flowed into the dirt had stopped her tongue, but not 87 00:07:15.825 --> 00:07:16.725 her voice. 88 00:07:17.225 --> 00:07:19.125 The voice sang on. 89 00:07:19.825 --> 00:07:24.525 It's saying in a hundred other cells where nameless martyrs awaited 90 00:07:24.525 --> 00:07:26.425 their hour in the arena. 91 00:07:26.825 --> 00:07:32.625 It sang across the ages to the ends of the Earth, bearing witness 92 00:07:32.625 --> 00:07:36.025 to the one who had given her a life 93 00:07:36.025 --> 00:07:37.625 that would not 94 00:07:37.825 --> 00:07:45.725 end. In the dirt and the stench and the blood and the death of that 95 00:07:45.725 --> 00:07:47.725 Carthaginian arena. 96 00:07:50.225 --> 00:07:55.925 And her voice has sung on in every corner of the Earth, where Jesus 97 00:07:55.925 --> 00:07:57.425 has been proclaimed. 98 00:07:58.225 --> 00:08:06.125 And it sings today, here with you, with the angels and the archangels, 99 00:08:06.425 --> 00:08:13.425 and the whole company of Heaven to laud, and magnify His 100 00:08:14.125 --> 00:08:14.925 Holy name. 101 00:08:18.925 --> 00:08:24.625 On this day when we remember the witness of Perpetua and her friends. 102 00:08:26.425 --> 00:08:29.525 We naturally think of their faithfulness. 103 00:08:30.825 --> 00:08:36.225 And we wonder whether we could have been so faithful a witness if we 104 00:08:36.225 --> 00:08:37.725 had been in their place. 105 00:08:38.925 --> 00:08:44.325 Or would we have just said the words and gone free? 106 00:08:47.025 --> 00:08:53.225 It's only natural to wonder but in doing so we're really missing the 107 00:08:53.225 --> 00:08:56.725 point. If they were here 108 00:08:57.825 --> 00:09:03.725 I believe that they would tell you that this day is not really about 109 00:09:03.725 --> 00:09:04.425 them. 110 00:09:05.525 --> 00:09:13.225 We call them martyrs not because of their suffering, but because of 111 00:09:13.225 --> 00:09:14.925 their martyria. 112 00:09:16.125 --> 00:09:17.725 Their Witness. 113 00:09:19.125 --> 00:09:22.725 And their martyria is Jesus Christ. 114 00:09:24.825 --> 00:09:32.525 Now, I can't stand here today and tell you what, the future holds for 115 00:09:32.525 --> 00:09:32.925 you. 116 00:09:33.825 --> 00:09:40.525 I'm fairly sure that it will hold some mixture of moments of joy and 117 00:09:40.525 --> 00:09:41.225 sorrow. 118 00:09:42.425 --> 00:09:49.025 But what I can tell you is this that what binds those moments together 119 00:09:49.025 --> 00:09:54.025 into a holy life, it's not your goodness. 120 00:09:55.625 --> 00:10:03.025 Not your morality. Not your hard work or even your faithful service to 121 00:10:03.025 --> 00:10:04.025 the church. 122 00:10:05.425 --> 00:10:07.525 It is your martyria. 123 00:10:08.725 --> 00:10:11.725 Your witness to Jesus Christ. 124 00:10:13.425 --> 00:10:21.225 And so God speaks to you as he spoke to Israel and to Perpetua. 125 00:10:22.225 --> 00:10:27.225 And to every Christian when he declared through the prophet, Isaiah. 126 00:10:28.325 --> 00:10:33.125 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through the 127 00:10:33.125 --> 00:10:33.825 rivers. 128 00:10:34.725 --> 00:10:36.525 They shall not overwhelm you. 129 00:10:37.525 --> 00:10:41.525 When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame 130 00:10:41.525 --> 00:10:43.325 shall not consume you. 131 00:10:44.725 --> 00:10:45.125 For 132 00:10:45.125 --> 00:10:47.225 I am the Lord your God. 133 00:10:48.125 --> 00:10:50.125 The Holy One of Israel. 134 00:10:51.425 --> 00:10:52.925 Your savior. 135 00:10:53.925 --> 00:10:55.925 You are my witnesses 136 00:10:55.925 --> 00:10:57.525 declares the Lord. 137 00:10:58.725 --> 00:11:05.325 And my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me. 138 00:11:06.625 --> 00:11:15.825 And understand that I am He. Before me know God was formed nor shall 139 00:11:15.825 --> 00:11:17.725 there be any after me. 140 00:11:19.425 --> 00:11:19.925 I. 141 00:11:21.225 --> 00:11:26.925 I am the Lord and besides me, there is no savior. 142 00:11:28.025 --> 00:11:32.425 I declared and saved and proclaimed 143 00:11:33.325 --> 00:11:35.725 you are my witnesses, 144 00:11:35.725 --> 00:11:37.125 declares the Lord. 145 00:11:38.425 --> 00:11:40.425 And I am God. 146 00:11:42.425 --> 00:11:49.425 In the name of Jesus, our hope, our salvation and our martyria. 147 00:11:50.525 --> 00:11:51.025 Amen.