Persecution

The other day I was thinking about the persecution of the church. And I don't mean like when people got upset because Starbucks stopped putting Christmas trees on their holiday cups. I mean like when people are risking their lives for their faith.

It all seems kind of surreal from our relatively comfortable cocoon of religious freedom here in North America, but things are not the same in other parts of the world.

I recently got a message from a friend in Norway. She had visited my church here on a business trip a while back, and we became Facebook friends. A couple she knew from Iran had converted to Christianity, she wrote, and had fled to Norway on a student visa. Their visa is expiring soon, it is not safe for them to return to Iran, and they want to come to Canada. Could I help?

I met a woman from Yellowknife yesterday whose church is welcoming Eritrean refugees fleeing religious persecution. 

Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim made the news recently for getting released from a North Korean prison. He went to North Korea on a humanitarian mission, and ended up spending two and a half years in a work camp, accused of trying to subvert the State.  He credited his Canadian citizenship for saving his life. 

At the church where I grew up, there was a couple who had met in Europe, smuggling Bibles across the Iron Curtain. They were the sweetest couple, and so it was a bit surreal when their son told me how, while watching a movie set in Europe, they recognized a street where they had been chased by the police. I didn't hear many stories from them--they were outward looking people, rarely talking about themselves--but one story stands out. The woman's mother, who thought her daughter was doing safe office work in Austria, one day could not shake the feeling that she needed to pray for her daughter. So she got down on her knees and prayed. It turned out that at that exact time, her daughter had been caught by an official who was known for his use of torture--and for some reason, he just let her go. 

When I was a teenager, I thought it would be so cool to go to an underground church. By many accounts, Christianity seems to spread like wildfire where it's illegal. The daring, the fervour, the miraculous escapes... it all felt very attractive to me. But the truth is, I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to sharing my faith. I don't think anyone knows how they will react if they have to make a decision where their life is on the line until it happens, but if I'm a coward here, in North America, it doesn't look promising.

In the Bible there is a story of a guy from Damascus named Ananias. He is really a secondary character in this story, often overlooked, but I think his story is important. One day, presumably while going about his daily business, he got a vision from God telling him to go visit a guy named Saul and heal him from his blindness. 

Ananias was taken aback, because Saul was kind of famous for persecuting Christians. He had, in fact, gone to Damascus for the express purpose of arresting the Christians there, with permission from the authorities. Saul was there at the execution of the very first Christian martyr, Stephen. 

Ananias must have been terrified. But God told him to go, so he went. And it's a good thing he did, because Saul, after changing his name to Paul, was the first missionary to the Gentiles. He traveled all over Asia Minor preaching about Jesus, and wrote perhaps a quarter of the New Testament. And, finally, he died in Rome, while imprisoned because of his faith. (Read the story of Paul's conversion here.)

I wonder what would have happened if Ananias had been too scared to visit Saul that day. 

In one of the last letters Paul wrote, while in prison, he says, 

"I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me." (Philippians 2:  20-26)

Oh, that I could have such courage!