As we come to the trial and martyrdom of the Pilgrim(s), it is worth reminding ourselves that Vanity Fair is on the Way, and we are told quite explicitly that any Pilgrim who would get to the Celestial City must pass through the Fair. The fact that Christian and Faithful are ‘passing through’ is, of course to do with the limitations of analogy. In the same way as we never pass on from the Beautiful Palace, so we never pass through Vanity Fair - at least not in this age. We live in both… indeed the fact that we live in Vanity Fair is one of the most compelling arguments for our frequenting the Beautiful Palace.
But that aside, why does the Way pass through such a place? Or put in a less allegorical way: Why does God ordain the persecution and martyrdom of Pilgrims? This is a huge question, and one that we have to come terms with when we look at the experience of the Church in most of the world, and slowly but increasingly, in the UK. Take, for example, the case of Maureen Martin, who last month was accused of gross misconduct and sacked after the Housing Association where she worked claimed her Lewisham Mayoral campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was 'discriminatory'. The reason for dismissal was Maureen’s manifesting her Christian faith on the topic of marriage outside of the workplace. And we’ll get some insight into the plight of the Church elsewhere in the world at our Open Doors / Global Church Weekend, 9-11th September.
But that doesn’t answer the question. Why does the Way pass through such experiences? What does God seek to achieve in the persecution and martyrdom of the Church.
Josef Tson - who we’ve met before in this series - was a pastor in Romania during Ceausescu’s communist regime, under which the Church was systematically persecuted. Tson himself was arrested, imprisoned and ‘interrogated’ by Romania’s secret internal police force, the Securitate. A group of American Christians effectively ransomed Tson, who was in turn exiled from Romania. During his time in the West, he preached ceaselessly, raising awareness of the plight of the church in Eastern Europe… And he wrote a PhD exploring the question of why God takes His Church through persecution and suffering.
He distilled a number answers from his studies in the Scriptures, among them:
1. …for the propagation of the Gospel. Tson argues that the world is built on the foundation of the cross. In part this means that it is designed to be a place of suffering and resurrection. That is the pattern of the cross. A seed that goes into the ground and dies, and therefore produces a harvest (Jn.12:23-26). That is true of Jesus, but because we live in a world shaped by the cross, it is also true of any Christian who suffers and dies; there will be a harvest - other people become Christians. This is an integral part of evangelism, and an unwillingness to submit to this principle will hinder mission (e.g. Acts 9:16).
2. …the defeat of Satan. Our world is an arena of war. But how do we defeat our enemy? The answer in the Bible includes: by suffering and dying. We see a classic statement of this in Rev.12:11, where there is listed three weapons of our warfare: our participation in the Cross of Christ (the blood of lamb); our evangelism (the word of our testimony); and our willingness to suffer martyrdom (they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death). Satan seeks to compel us to live according to his will – i.e. faithless to Christ and characterised by sin - by intimidating us with the threat of suffering and rejection and death. But when we believe in the resurrection of and through Christ, so that we do not love our lives so much as to shrink from death, then Satan is defeated.
3. …the re-imaging of the Christian. The suffering of the Church is a refiner’s fire that, if engaged with faithfully, leads to the purging of sin and the re-forming of Christ’s image in us. Hence the Psalmist’s reflection: ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word… It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees’ (Ps.119:67 & 71) We see the same sentiment in e.g. Rom.5:3-4, where Paul celebrates how God is at work in the midst of our suffering to restore the Character of Christ. There are things about being like Jesus - the Suffering Servant - that we can only learn in suffering service.
4. …the glorifying of God. In Ps.63:3 we read: ‘your love is better than life’. Suffering, and particularly the anticipation of martyrdom, gives us the opportunity to display that we value our relationship with God, and His honour and glory, more than we value even life itself. Martyrdom is the most eloquent sermon, in which we preach: I would rather die than dishonour my Lord. I would rather perish than sully His love. I would rather lay down my life, than deny Him who gave it to me. We are provided a pulpit like no other, from which we can declare to the watching world that infinite worth of the love of our God.
This is at least part of the reason why Bunyan includes the trials and testings of the Pilgrims, and the martyrdom of Faithful at the hands of Vanity Fair as part of their Progress. After all, ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (II Tim.3:12).
Questions to ponder:
Do you think the reasons Tson outlines are sufficiently compelling to help us in our experience of rejection and persecution?
How can we make sure we don’t waste our suffering?
