Sunday Homily - August 18, 2019 - The Martyr's Faith

The 21 Martyrs of Libya Icon

I.

If anyone knows what the balance between faith and division looks like,
 it is a man Richard Wurmbrand,
  a Lutheran pastor of Romanian descent during the 20th century.

[The following is a biography of Richard Wurmbrand from the Voice of the Martyrs main website

https://www.persecution.com/founders/]

-----
In 1945,
 during the bloody conflict we remember as World War II,
  Romania was a country caught in the vice of the Soviet Union to the north,
   Nazi Germany to the west,
    and Bulgaria to the south.

And in 1945,
 the Romanian government crumbled.

When the Communists of the Soviet Union seized the country of Romania
 and attempted to take control of the churches, Pastor Wurmbrand began an effective,
  vigorous
  “underground” ministry to oppressed believers
   as well as to the Russian soldiers occupying his country.

He was arrested in 1948,
 along with his wife, Sabina, who was imprisoned as a slave-laborer for three years on the Danube Canal.
  Pastor Wurmbrand spent three years in solitary confinement,
   seeing no one but his Soviet torturers.
    He was then transferred to a group cell, where the torture continued for five more years.

As a Christian leader of international stature,
 Richard’s imprisonment did not go unnoticed.

However, when foreign diplomats asked the Communist Romanian government about him,
 they were told that he had fled the country.
  Adding to the confusion, Romanian secret police posing as former prisoners
   told his wife Sabina they had attended his burial in the prison cemetery.
    His family and friends were told that Richard Wurmbrand was dead.

After more than eight years in prison,
 Richard Wurmbrand was released,
  immediately resuming his work with the underground church.
   A couple of years later, in 1959, he was re-arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Pastor Wurmbrand was released through a general amnesty in 1964,
 again resuming his underground ministry.
  A group of Christians in Norway, realizing the probability and danger of a third imprisonment,
   negotiated his family’s emigration from Romania with the Communist authorities,
    who had begun “selling” political prisoners.

While the average price for a prisoner was about $1,900,
 the government demanded $10,000 for Pastor Wurmbrand.

In May 1966,
 Richard testified before the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee,
  where he stripped to the waist to show 18 scars from torture wounds covering his torso.

His story was carried in newspapers throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
 Pastor Wurmbrand was warned in September 1966
  that Romania’s Communist regime planned to assassinate him,
   but he would not be silenced.

Pastor Wurmbrand with his wife Sabina
 became founding members of a Christian non-profit called The Voice of the Martyrs
  Pastor Wurmbrand and his wife traveled throughout the world
   establishing a network of more than 30 offices that provide relief to families of imprisoned Christians
    in countries where Christians are persecuted because of their faith.

And this is his repeated message to his brothers and sisters in the faith:
 “Hate the evil systems, but love your persecutors.
  Love their souls, and try to win them for Christ.”

Pastor Wurmbrand has written numerous books, which have been translated into more than 70 languages.
 He has also been given a nickname by some: “The Apostle Paul of the Iron Curtain.”
-----

Pastor Wurmbrand finally was called to his heavenly home in 2001,
 where no doubt Jesus
  and our ancestors in the faith of ages past
   and all the souls of his flock
    on whose behalf he was persecuted
     greeted him with a hero's welcome.

Pastor Wurmbrand was a Christian soul "of whom the world was not worthy."
[Hebrews 11]

And Pastor Wurmbrand
 is one of countless Christians
  even in our modern context
   who have chosen the hard road of opposing the brokenness of the world to it's face
    because of his faith in Jesus Christ.

II.

True accounts, like Pastor Wurmbrand's story,
 demonstrate another side of faith that we in the United States
  must be aware of within the world.

Because stories like his help us make sense of the breadth of what true faith in God
 will require of us at some points in time and history.

This is why our reading in the book of Hebrews this morning
 isn't about a distant past in which Christians were persecuted for their faith.

Instead, the book of Hebrews is a testament of the faithfulness of God
 in the face of the ruthless, nasty evil that rears its head against the faithful.

Think again about what the book of Hebrews said about faith:

"And what more should I say?
 For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah,
  of David and Samuel and the prophets--

who through faith conquered kingdoms,
 administered justice,
  obtained promises,
   shut the mouths of lions,
    quenched raging fire,
     escaped the edge of the sword,
      won strength out of weakness,
       became mighty in war,
        put foreign armies to flight.
         Women received their dead by resurrection.

[But] Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection.
 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
  They were stoned to death,
   they were sawn in two,
    they were killed by the sword;
     they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented--
      of whom the world was not worthy."

Notice with me, friends,
 that the life of faith ain't all daisies and roses.

For sure, the virtue of saving faith will lead you into peace,
 into grace,
  into love.

But God also knows what realistic obstacles we will be up against.

In order to get to those promises,
 we have to roll up the sleeves of our hearts
  and be prepared to work tirelessly for the sake of the Kingdom of God
   regardless of what the world thinks of us.

III.

Some of our ancestors in the faith gave all they had to deliver to us today
 that saving faith to share with the world.

In a very real, visceral way,
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did what they did
  to pass on the faith
   to the next generation,
    because God's salvation meant everything to them,
     and all else that they had was worthless compared to reaching heaven,
      the very presence of God.

In a very real, heart-wrenching way,
 the Christian martyrs under Rome in the First Century
  passed on the faith to the 21 Christian martyrs of Egypt in 2015.
  [https://www.christiancentury.org/article/notes-global-church/christian-martyrs-orange-jumpsuits]

And in a very real, almost incomprehensible way,
 the faith of the martyrs
  has been given as a priceless gift
   to us today
    by those whom Jesus Christ called to walk the hard way of faith
     so that we may receive that same saving faith in Christ that they had.

Because the reality is, brothers and sisters in Christ,
 that the powers of evil in the world
  have already been defeated.
   They just don't know it yet.

This is why we as Christians fear the power of death no longer,
 because death can no longer ultimately kill us.

This is why Christians throughout history can refuse to stand for injustice
 and accept the consequences from the world
  because they know that even if they die
   they will be raised bodily in the resurrection at the last day.

This is why Christians throughout our world today
 choose to go into the mission field locally in their cities
  and abroad into other countries
   to spread the faith
    because we desperately want to share this saving faith with others
     so that they also are set free from fear and death!

And this is the foundations of OUR work here at Trinity, friends.

We do the things we do here
 because we recognize the gift of faith delivered to us
  and we desperately wish to share that same faith in a loving and gracious God
   who loves the world so much that God died on behalf of you and me
    so that we can live forever!

And this is why no matter what hardships you face,
 no matter what evil you see,
  no matter how hopeless things in life seem to be,
   the things that haunt you
    the things that deny your worth before God,
     the things that try to tear your world apart...

...no matter what those things may be,
 that Jesus Christ has already overthrown all of those things,
  and that Christ has already won the victory for you today.

As the Apostle Paul once said,
 and as I firmly believe now, friends,
  so now I pass on to you again the gracious words of Paul
   by the Holy Spirit:

"Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
 Will hardship,
  or distress,
   or persecution,
    or famine,
     or nakedness,
      or peril,
       or sword?

...No,
 in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
  For I am convinced that neither death,
   nor life, nor angels,
    nor rulers,
     nor things present,
      nor things to come,
      nor powers,
       nor height, nor depth,
        nor anything else in all creation,
        will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
 

In the Name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.