Revelation: The Church in Smyrna
Revelation: The Church of Smyrna - “Do Not Fear!”
We read earlier a portion of the first chapter of the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was an Old Testament prophet who was in his teens when God called him to deliver God’s message to the people. Now this is what God says to Jeremiah - “Jeremiah, I want you to be my prophet. I am going to give you a very hard message to tell my people. You are going to have to tell them that they need to clean up their act and start living as my people or else destruction will happen to them. I know that this is not a pleasant thing to have to do. I realize that it is not easy to deliver a harsh message to people and they are not going to take it well. You are going to be persecuted. You will be beaten and imprisoned and all manner of terrible things are going to happen to you. You will be alone most of your life and you will never have the opportunity to marry. But, Jeremiah, stand firm, Do not fear. I will be with you!” And what God said to Jeremiah was true. Jeremiah agreed to do this for God and Jeremiah suffered just as God said he would. Jeremiah was beaten and thrown in prison and persecuted in many different ways because he was willing to do what God asked him to regardless of the cost.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was martyred during WWII in Germany because he stood up against the state takeover of the church by Hitler wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship” that I truly believe should be mandatory for every Christian to read. In this book, Bonhoeffer states that if we as followers of Christ don’t experience some suffering in the name of Jesus, then we really aren’t following God as God has called us to follow. Bonhoeffer spent many years in prison in Germany for his stand for the church and was eventually hanged - all because he was willing to hold firm to his faith in Christ.
Pope Francis in a homily recently stated that there are as many Christians suffering for their faith today as there were in the days of the church during New Testament times. These are some of the incidents that have taken place in the last couple of years in other parts of the world:
- Chinese Pastor Shaojie Zhang was sentenced to 12 years in prison for ‘fraud’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb public order’ because he refused to stop holding worship in his home.
- Also in China, 160 Christian churches have received notice that their church - many of which are in private homes - will be demolished.
- Burma has declared all citizens must convert to Buhhism. Currently in order to remain Christian the churches have to pay bribes to public officials to remain open. Even with the bribe the Christians are currently suffering physical and emotional persecution.
- It is estimated that in West Africa Boko Horan has murdered over 2000 Christians.
- In Iraq 11 churches have been burned to the ground and Iraqi leaders have declared their intention to totally eradicate Christianity from the country.
- There have been similar incidents in Kenya, India, Columbia and The Sudan.
One more - again at seminary there were 2 young girls who were graduates of the seminary and had come back to the seminary where they were given room and board and a chance to ‘recover’ from their time in Cambodia. They had gone there as missionaries - understanding that they couldn’t tell anyone they were missionaries - they had jobs in a school to teach English. However, when they could they presented the gospel of Christ and had begun a small church that met in their apartment. The government of the city they were in had discovered what they were doing and began a campaign to run them out of town. They were beaten, items were stolen from their apartment. One of the girls was riding her bike to work and was hit by a car - where the person stopped long enough to shout to her - ‘take that you Christ follower’. The harassment got so bad the girls began to suffer anxiety attacks and eventually the stress forced them to have to come home where they shared their story.
Suffering in the name of Jesus - it is not just something that happened long ago. He is prevalent today and should make us put into perspective the inconveniences we experience to do what God has called us to do…… And maybe could challenge us to take our faith and faith practices more seriously.
To the church in Smyrna John writes: 8 “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive:
9 “I know about your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich! I know the blasphemy of those opposing you. They say they are Jews, but they are not, because their synagogue belongs to Satan. 10 Don’t be afraid of what you are about to suffer. The devil will throw some of you into prison to test you. You will suffer for ten days. But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.11 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches As we continue to look at the churches that are addressed in the book of Revelation, today we look at the Church in Smyrna. Smyrna, interestingly enough, still exists today as the city of Izmir in Turkey. It is north of the city of Ephesus which we talked about last week. In ancient times Smyrna was called the “Flower of Asia” because of its beauty. The cities’ name came from their production of the sweet perfume called myrrh. This oil was used in the anointing oil of the priests and was used in embalming of the dead - remember this was one of the gifts from the wiremen to the young Jesus. Like the city of Ephesus, Smyrna was a very pagan city worshipping especially the god Bacchus - the god of Wine. There was also a temple to Rome where people would worship the city which governed over them. But more significant, there was a large Jewish population in Smyrna who were very powerful citizens in the city and who led in the persecution of the Christian population. Jesus says to this church - you are currently being persecuted and you will continue to be persecuted. There are records of the persecution of Christian here lasting way past the 2nd century. Persecution consisted of imprisonment, torture and Christians were not permitted to work - so all of theses followers of Jesus in Smyrna lived in poverty. So why did they stay here? - because Jesus told them to because their suffering was a witness to the love and care of Jesus. In this passage Jesus says, I know what you are going through. I know how you are suffering. But don’t be afraid. You are actually more wealthy than anyone else in the city because you will receive eternal life in my name. Just like the words to Jeremiah - I know you are going to suffer, but stick with it because through your suffering others will be brought to the truth of God and you will receive the final reward - life forever…… Don’t be afraid. You are going to get the stuffings knocked out of you, but don’t be afraid. Did you know that over 100 times the Bible says “Do not be afraid”? What do these words mean to us, however? The suffering that Jesus is talking about here is not personal suffering - I have a headache or a disease or a bad family situation - those are indeed types of suffering and Jesus is certainly with you in these times - but the suffering that is being addressed here is suffering because of your faith in Christ. Jesus says to this church in Smyrna, stick with it, hang in there, I see what you are doing for me and I support you. Yea, Smyrna! This is what I want my church and my people to be. As we listened to these stories about what Christians are going through around our world, it is a call to self examination to think about what we are really willing to do for the sake of the church, for the sake of the gospel of Christ.
Amen.