There are Martyrs Among the Dead

There are martyrs among the dead.
The reports trickled in late last night. The madman who took nine lives in a college in Oregon was not killing indiscriminately; he was targeting Christians. His hate was not blind. It was focused. Cold. Calculated. We people of the cross were the target of this madman, our confession and our King so offensive that only death would stamp it out. And so we’re left, once again, weeping over our dead. We are left consoling our brothers and sisters who lost sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, church members, coworkers, colleagues. We are again picking up the pieces after anti-Christian hate caused chaos. This is not a tragedy. This is evil. This is hate. But we will not bow to it. No, we remain standing. Tearful and brokenhearted but still standing, holding one another up, bearing even this heavy a burden for one another because we do not stand alone. We do not bear alone. We lean into our only comfort in death and in life; that we belong, body and soul to our loving God and Father.

There are martyrs among the dead.
Killed for beliefs that some preachers would deem childish and others unnecessary. Murdered for an unwillingness to deny a savior before a madman with a gun who had already pulled the trigger. But you, oh preacher of liberal theology, cower before academia? Trading your faith for tenure, playing respectability politics with the text so that no one would think badly of you? But your peers don’t respect you, they laugh you. They mock you the same way they mock the One who bled. Your claim to the name “Christian” is hypocrisy of the highest order. You empty the name of meaning and reshape it according to your own desires, creating a Jesus in your own image, a hollow bastardization of the true Jesus of the Bible, the God of all creation who died for our sins and rose again in victory. Yet you replace him with a weak deluded sage of a bygone age that should be patted on the head before put out to pasture. Perhaps it is no wonder that you wilt before the eyes of a glaring professor and yet the martyrs could stand firm before the muzzle of a gun.

There are martyrs among the dead.
Following their savior into suffering for the sake of the name of Christ. Suffering in ways unimaginable for many and denied by preachers who would prefer a genie for a God. Preachers who preach peace and prosperity in the face of slaughter and suffering. How dare you belittle the cost of their faith, oh preacher of prosperity! There is no best life now, there is no power of positive thinking that can provide strength in the face of tyranny. You fill your pews with platitudes and empty smiles while the martyrs remind us of the call to fill up the sufferings of Christ! You crack your jokes and wag your heads while we weep over our fallen once again. May God rip your pulpits away from you and bring you to your knees in repentance. May you never preach your false gospel again, may you see the emptiness of your message because

There are martyrs among the dead!
Oh God, you warned us of this. Dearest King you told us that they would hate us and yet it is jarring when such hate explodes in front of us. Our brothers and sisters snatched away, the fiery darts of the devil taking the form of bullets. We know that you are with us and we do not mourn like those who have no hope. Yet we mourn! We weep! We look around at the carnage, another news report bringing us to our knees and our souls cry out, How Long, O Lord? How long must we call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence” but you do not save? How long, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge their blood on those who dwell on the earth? How long must we take counsel in our souls and have sorrow in our hearts all the day? How long shall our enemies be exalted over us?
But we trust in your steadfast love; our hearts will rejoice in your salvation! Even in this, O God, we trust you. How long, O Lord?

There are martyrs among the dead.
But we refuse to be defeated. We refuse to mourn like those who have no hope. Not because we are strong but because you are strong! You have promised us life abundant and you bring us eternally into your presence! The martyrs under the altar will be brought forth and clothed in white robes! The victor’s crown will sit on their heads! We are not forgotten and our martyred brothers and sisters did not die in vain. The devil may attack and even may kill us but he has already been defeated! Oh the futility of Satan, who lashes out against us even after his head has been crushed, the death blow delivered! We may suffer before his death throes but it is finished and our enemy has been defeated! So while there are martyrs among the dead, they do not remain in death because death could not contain you! No, you rose in victory and bring us together with you! There are martyrs among the dead but the truth is greater than this —

These martyrs are among the Living.