Faithful, not Faithless

 

Jesu Juva

Revelation 2:8-11                                        

February 28, 2024

Lent Midweek 2                

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.  That call to be faithful is something we’ve all heard before.  It’s entirely possible that this sentence from Revelation chapter two is a confirmation verse for some of you.  In fact, Confirmation Sunday is probably the most likely Sunday to hear these words of our Lord.  Smiling children in white robes, looking forward to white cake and red punch.  And on a few of those cakes, spelled out in red frosting, you just might read these words of our text:  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

        But in reality these words are mostly lived out under far less festive circumstances.  Shortly after these words of Jesus were written down by the Apostle John, they would have been delivered to the Christian congregation in Smyrna.  And among those in Smyrna who first heard these words from Jesus was a boy—right around confirmation age—named Polycarp.  That young boy lived to a ripe old age with those words of Jesus ringing in his ears.  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

        For Polycarp these words would be lived out on February 23, 155.  Polycarp was by then an old, old man—serving as the pastor of the church at Smyrna.  A bloodthirsty crowd in Smyrna had just cheered and jeered as a group from Polycarp’s congregation was thrown to the lions.  Hungry for more blood and gore, the crowd demanded Polycarp, the pastor of the Christians.  Catching wind of the evil that was afoot, Polycarp was encouraged to flee—to save himself.  Instead, when the police arrived, Polycarp invited them in, and ordered that food and drink should be served to them.  He asked for an hour to pray; and the request was granted.

        When later that night Polycarp was finally dragged before the judge and a bloodthirsty mob, he was informed that it would be very easy for him to avoid being burned alive.  All he needed to do was say “Caesar is Lord” and “Cursed be Christ.”  Those words, together with just a pinch of incense offered to a statue of Caesar, would spare Polycarp’s life.  How easy it would have been to say a few words.  How easy it would have been to avoid suffering and searing pain.  But deep in this old soul the words of the Lord still resounded:  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

        The old pastor spoke to the judge calmly and firmly:  Eighty-six years I have served Christ, and He never did me any wrong.  How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?  You threaten me with fire that burns for an hour and in a little while is quenched;  for you know not of the fire of judgment to come, and the fire of eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly.  Why do you delay?  Do what you will.  The enraged mob needed no encouragement to ignite an inferno of hungry flames to burn an old man to death.  But those flames only served—for Polycarp—to light the pathway home.  And within minutes, he was home—home with the Lord Jesus, his King and Savior, in paradise.  Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.

        The account of Polycarp’s martyrdom is a treasure handed down to us through the centuries.  It is, at the same time, moving . . . and shaming.  How can we hear of his faithfulness without recognizing our own faithlessness?  For even under far less pressure—in peaceful times of plenty—we have all failed to be faithful.  Polycarp’s situation was rather clear cut—black and white:  Confess the Christ or curse the Christ. 

        The temptations to unfaithfulness we face are often less clear and shaded with gray.  The pull to be unfaithful often plays out in private for us—with no judge, no jury, no bloodthirsty crowd clamoring for a conviction.  For us the temptations to deny Christ—to put other things ahead of Him—come in subtler ways, even in ways that suggest we might, in fact, be doing Christ a service by shirking our duty and slipping away under the cover of darkness.

        None of Jesus’ disciples had any trouble justifying their own escape into the darkness when Jesus was betrayed and arrested.  Except for one sword stroke, nobody dithered about whether to fight or flee.  They fled!  This despite the fact that Jesus had told them plainly earlier that night:  You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’  Every last man objected strenuously to what Jesus was predicting.  But just seconds after Judas planted his lips on Jesus, every last man left Him and fled—they all scattered like sheep—including a young man who had to high-tail it out of there, naked as a jaybird.  It would be funny if it weren’t so shameful.  It would be funny if we couldn’t see ourselves doing the very same thing—parting company with the shirt off our back to save ourselves from suffering with Jesus.

        When you are confronted with suffering and the cross, the road to unfaithfulness seems so broad and so easy and so appealing.  In those moments we need to hear the Lord say what He said to the church at Smyrna:  I know.  I know your tribulation.  In our uncertainties and our temptations and in the mess we often make of things, we can be confident that our Lord knows.  He knows the details—He knows the facts of our failures and our faithlessness, no matter how we might try to camouflage things.  And the Lord’s knowing of these things should drive us to our knees in repentance.

        But there’s another kind of knowing which is unique to our King and Savior.  The Lord Jesus knows what you have to face.  He knows your temptations to doubt Him.  He knows the enemies you face—even the ones who might just betray you with a kiss.  He knows all the ways you will be tested.  Even the worst of it the Lord knows and uses as a way to bless you and cleanse you.  He Himself highjacks all the hell that comes your way, and uses it for His purposes—so that you might grow in endurance and in character and in hope.  Jesus says, “I know your tribulation.”  He knows it not just in the way of facts in a divine data base or spreadsheet.  He knows it all just as if it were happening to Him.  Because, in truth, it has—it has all happened to Him, as your sacred substitute.

        His crucifixion cross reveals His love for you unmistakably.  There He bears all your sin and all your faithlessness.  He was abandoned by every last friend and disciple so that He might be with you always—in the power of His promises, in the cleansing splash of your baptism, and in His holy Supper.

        He is your crucified King and your risen Savior, who controls all things in heaven and on earth.  He wrote to the church at Smyrna about suffering tribulation for “ten days.”  That didn’t necessarily mean a literal ten days; but it did mean a specific span of time—a set time, a limited time, a short span specified by Him.  He is the Lord who numbers all our days; and through all these days of our lives He gives us a heart of wisdom.

        This Jesus who is first and last, who died and came to life—He says of your suffering, “I know.”  But He also says, “I will give.  I will give you the crown of life.”  That crown of life sounds so nice.  Notice that it is given, not earned.  “I will give,” says Jesus.  And nothing is so certain as the Lord’s giving and our receiving.  And we know and believe that the giving of that crown of life is based entirely on His faithfulness, His forgiveness, His love, His death, His resurrection.  Whether it’s eighty-six years you have lived in and with Christ, or some shorter span of years that He has numbered out for you, the Lord is faithful.  He knows.  He will give.  In Him we believe and trust—even unto death.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.