So, it turns out there is a magazine actually called ‘Vanity Fair’. What is that all about? Grim irony? Unhappy coincidence? Studied defiance?
Anyway, back to Christian and Faithful’s plight… Although they ’behaved themselves yet more wisely … with so much meekness and patience that it won to their side … several of the men of the fair’, they learn ‘that the cage nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die for the abuse they had done’. The two Pilgrims call again to mind what Evangelist had told them, and find strength and courage in their knowing that their suffering has been foretold.
There are clear echoes of Bunyan’s own experience, and the injustice of it, which lends the ring of truth to the behaviour of Christian and Faithful throughout this episode. In his autobiography (Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners), he writes:
Before I came to prison, I saw what was a-coming, and had especially two considerations warm upon my heart; the first was how to be able to endure, should my imprisonment be long and tedious; the second was how to be able to encounter death, should that be here my portion; for the first of these, that Scripture (Colossians 1:11) was great information to me, namely, to pray to God to be "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." I could seldom go to prayer before I was imprisoned, but not for so little as a year together, this sentence, or sweet petition, would, as it were, thrust itself into my mind, and persuade me, that if ever I would go through long-suffering, I must have all patience, especially if I would endure it joyfully
[par. 324].
Christian and Faithful commit themselves to the providence of God, but in an interesting paragraph, we are told that while they comforted each other with the thought of martyrdom, each secretly hoped they might have ‘that preferment’. An eagerness to be counted amongst the martyrs may seem strange, even macabre, to us, but it is a common theme thorughout the history of the church.
During the years following the Apostles, as the Church suffered periodic persecutions under the Roman Empire, there was the temptation to think that you weren’t a ‘proper’ Christian unless you were martyred. The Bishops of that period had to work quite hard to convince people that it was possible to be a genuine Disciple without suffering at the very least, imprisonment and torture. They also had to remind their flock that martyrdom wasn’t really martyrdom if you went seeking it, and provoking the authorities to act against the Church.
We have a series of letters from Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, written en route to the Colosseum in Rome at the turn of the second century (107 AD). He repeatedly asks the Christians not to intervene and do anything that might jeopardise his prospect of martyrdom. "I fear your kindness, which may harm me," he wrote to Roman Christians hoping to free him. "You may be able to achieve what you plan. But if you pay no heed to my request, it will be very difficult for me to attain unto God." And that was truly Ignatius's goal: to imitate "our God Jesus Christ" in death. If the Christians at Rome really wanted to do something, they should pray that he would remain faithful.
So the idea that Christian and Faithful both hoped they would be the one martyred isn’t so far from being a possibility. But with true meekness, they commit themselves ‘to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things…’. Their confidence in the sovereignty of God provides a basis for their hope, and their contentment of the condition they were in. Again, this might feel alien to us, but that might be because none of us have had to face the prospect of our own martyrdom. There is great comfort in knowing that nothing can happen to us that does not come from the hand of our Father. That includes suffering (I Pet.3:17). The truly terrifying thing would be the idea that suffering could come our way that wasn’t in the will of God. Such suffering would be without meaning or purpose.
Christian and Faithful know they are on the path to the Celestial City. They know that path runs through Vanity Fair. They know their experience here is foreknown, and their persecution and martyrdom fore-ordained. And they know that their perseverance to the end is ensured. And like the Apostles of old, they find themselves ‘rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name’ (Acts 5:41).
Questions to ponder:
How long do you think it will be before the Church in Britain is openly persecuted?
How do you think MIE can best prepare us to endure faithfully?
