GOD’S WISDOM FOR YOU
PSALM 79:2-4
2 They have left the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds of the sky.
They have given the flesh of your favored ones
to the wild animals.
3 They have poured out their blood like water all over Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury them.
4 We are subjected to contempt by our neighbors,
To mockery and ridicule by those around us.
Asaph’s prophetic words point to a time when God’s people—all who believe in him—will be persecuted, and many of them to the death. The words are gruesome, and the fact was especially grisly. In the earliest years of the second century, Christians were terrorized by the Romans; blamed for every crime and punished for anything and everything simply because they refused to call Caesar ‘God.’ Some of them thought they could make a show of their faith, but sometimes they just couldn’t do it. They found themselves in the arena, with the crowd yelling all around them, and there was a bear, or a lion, or a leopard, savage and unstoppable, and their hearts broke. They couldn’t do it—they just couldn’t stand the idea of being torn so painfully and devoured by a wild animal. Their knees buckled, and they fainted or almost fainted, and then they swore vows to Caesar. They took the incense, and they lit it on fire with a kindly centurion to help them, and they said with their actions, “Christ is not God. Only Caesar is God.” The crowd was probably disappointed, but the boos and hisses faded away.
We have this example: “One man named Quintus, a Phrygian (and newly arrived from Phrygia), became frightened when he saw the wild beasts. He had voluntarily offered himself and some others to come forward. The proconsul persuaded him, earnestly convincing him to swear the oath and to make the sacrifice. That is why, brothers, we do not praise those who come forward of their own free will, for that is not the teaching of the gospel.” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 4:1).
We don’t have to face the teeth of lions in the arena. What we have to do is face the scorn of friends and co-workers. We have to have our hearts broken when our favorite comedian turns his bile on our faith. We have to explain the sins of some Christian who let himself fall into temptation. We have to confess our faith before unbelievers who sneer at us and smugly ask how we can embrace a religion that believes what we believe. They want to know why we label as sinful whatever pet sins they love most. It’s a strain. It can be painful. But God knows our pain; he gives us strength through the promise of the resurrection. That is where our strength lies: We have a place with God forever in heaven. If the devil’s dogs gnash and bark at us as we walk past them to our eternal home, then let them rage and rave. We have Christ.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota