[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen. Dear Eilish and Melody, the baptized, and dear confermans who will stand before the Lord and before this church in a few minutes and confess his name to all those who are born again by the Lord’s promise and who trust in his coming. Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is appropriate today that we remember the blood shed by Peter and Paul for the sake of the gospel. So many thousands of years ago, it was probably, well, as well as we know, it was on today, June 29th in the year 78 or 79, when Peter and Paul were both arrested in Rome under Nero, the wicked emperor, who condemned them both to die.
Tradition tells us, and we don’t have this in the scriptures, it’s a few years after the close of the book of Acts, maybe 12 or 13 years after the book of Acts closes. But tradition tells us that Peter was sentenced to be crucified. That’s normally how the Romans liked to kill the Jews. But Peter denied that crucifixion. At least he said, “I am not worthy to die in the same way that my Lord died. Crucify me instead upside down.” And so tradition tells us that that’s what happened, that Peter was crucified, if you can imagine it, upside down. It sounds like a crazy tradition, but actually it’s just the kind of thing the Romans would have loved to hear. Oh, let’s try that, you know, and they would have done it.
Paul, on the other hand, was not crucified because he was a Roman citizen. And so it was illegal to crucify a citizen. The crucifixion was for slaves and for foreigners. So Paul was given the more merciful execution of having his head cut off. We think it happened, though, on the same day. And we remember it today.
Both of their martyrdoms were prophesied by Christ. Peter’s we have at the end of John. Remember when he told Peter, he said, “When you were young, you dressed yourself and you went where you wanted to go. But when you get older, other people will dress you and take you where you want to go.” And he said this in reference to what kind of death he was going to die. And then when Jesus called Paul, when he was on the road to Damascus to persecute the church, Jesus said to him from the cloud of glory, “I will show you how much you have to suffer for my name.”
And so Peter and Paul suffered all, even death, rather than fall away from the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is the life and the death of a martyr, and this is the promise of the martyr that all of you who will be confirmed in a few minutes will make. In fact, if you’ve been confirmed, you’ve already made this promise. The question sounds something like this: “Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and church and to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?”
Now, by the way, this church there doesn’t mean St. Paul Lutheran Church. Like, you have to die before you can leave our congregation. That’s not what that means. But this church means the church that confesses the Lord’s truth, the church that holds to his word, the church that has law and gospel, the sacraments rightly administered, and the gospel rightly preached.
And here the question is put before you, conformance today. The question will be put before you, and the question is put before all of us again to think about this. Would we rather die, suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from the faith? Now, this is a serious question. It’s not something that we should consider flippantly or just answer light-heartedly. We should ask, is this worth dying for?
But I want us to consider this. Because being a Christian sets us apart in the world. Most people barely even have something worth living for, much less something worth dying for. But this is the claim that the Lord Jesus makes on each one of us, that there is something more important than your life, something more important than your heartbeat and your breath, something more important than you continuing on. There’s something that, and this is what Jesus is asking all of us to consider.
Now, this vow of the martyrs in ancient days was a lot more practical than I think it is today, at least today. Who knows how it’ll be in a couple of weeks. Remember the first couple hundred years of church history, from, I don’t know, from the death and resurrection of Jesus until the edict of Constantine in 313, there were these massive waves of persecution when whole churches or pastors and bishops would be gathered up by the Romans and they would all be lined up and fed to the lions or crucified or burned at the stake or whatever sort of crazy things the Romans could come up with.
This was a live question for those who were being confirmed. I remember, for example, this story of Perpetua. She’s one of the old, famous martyrs. She was arrested because she was going to an adult confirmation class. She wasn’t even confirmed yet. And she was going to class, and they arrested her and the whole adult instruction class. She had just had a baby. She was nursing. Do you remember this story?
Perpetua was nursing, and her father would bring her baby to her in prison so that she could nurse her baby. And the whole time she was nursing, her father would berate her for being a Christian, for being mixed up with those nasty people for believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and confessing his name. And over and over, every day he would come to her and try to persuade her to forsake Christ. She wouldn’t. In fact, at some point, he stopped bringing the baby, and he would come by himself, right, and was trying to constrain her to renounce Christ.
And Perpetua says beautifully one day, she says to her dad, “Do you see the pot?” There must have been some sort of clay pot in the corner of her prison cell. And she said, “Do you see that pot?” And her father said, “Yeah, yes, I do.” And she said, “Could you call it by something else other than a pot?” And he said, “No, it’s a pot.” And she said, “Neither can I be named by any other name than this. I am a Christian. I am a Christian.” And this means that whatever the Lord has for the Christian, be it joy or sorrow, be it life or death, be it poverty or riches, I will receive it from the hands of God who has called me to be his own. I am a Christian, and I would rather suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it.
That’s what happened, by the way, to Perpetua. She was with her whole confirmation class and even the pastor who was teaching class; they were all brought to the arena to die. The Romans, you know, they came up with wild animals like bulls and leopards and stuff to kill all the guys, and then they came up with mad cows and women leopards to kill the girls. They thought that would be fun, but they didn’t kill Perpetua, so she had to be killed by the gladiator with a sword to her neck, which she did. She gladly suffered, like Peter and Paul, gladly suffered death rather than forsake Christ.
Now, this martyr’s vow was pretty important in those days, but it went quiet for a little while. I mean, at least in Western Europe, from 315 or so until the Reformation time, there weren’t that many martyrs. But then at the Reformation, it happened again. There were martyrs, those who were killed for confessing Christ. I was reading last year about the burning of Brother Henry. He was a pastor who had studied at Wittenberg, and he was preaching, and some people from a different town called him over to preach. And when he went over there, he was arrested by the priest.
He was driven… driven from one place to another, half naked from one town in the snow, and then they went to kill him because he was confessing that salvation was by grace through faith apart from works. They tried to burn him. I mean, you know these stories. They’re kind of crazy, but they were trying to burn. They would always try to burn the martyrs, and they would always have trouble starting the fire, which I remember every time I’m starting the barbecue, that this is the old Roman problem.
And it makes you think of the martyrs, you know. They had trouble starting the fire. And so they would always try to burn these martyrs, but they ended up failing all the time, I think by God’s grace. And so they would end up dying in prison. Well, Henry, they didn’t burn him, so they had to smash him with a mace. The news of it got down to Wittenberg. He was one of Luther’s students. And Luther was writing the story about Brother Henry. And he says this.
And here’s an amazing thing from Luther. Luther says, “In our day, the true pattern of the Christian life has reemerged.” I want you to think about that. I mean, I have to think about it a lot. You see what Luther’s saying? He’s saying that the true pattern of the Christian life is the life of the martyr. The true shape of the Christian life is the life of suffering.
We know it from the scriptures, right? Jesus is the one who says, “In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer. I’ve overcome the world.” Jesus is the one who says, “Take up your cross and follow me if you would be my disciples.” Jesus is the one who says, “Those who kill you will think that they do a good work to God.” Jesus is the one who says that they’ll drag you in the synagogues and they’ll take you before the courts. And they’ll blaspheme you. They’ll blaspheme you. And they’ll say all kinds of wicked things about you. They said it about me first.
Jesus is the one who puts us in this world, not as citizens of the world, but as strangers, as pilgrims, as those who don’t quite belong. And the Lord has put us in the world as a rebuke to the world, shining in the light of Christ in the midst of darkness, so that the world and the devil and our sinful flesh, but especially the world, hates the Christian and is always railing against it, which is why we have to be ready, according to this promise, to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it.
But I’d like to suggest, dear saints, I’d like to suggest this morning that it’s not just that in Christ we have something that is more important than our life. That’s true. I’d like to suggest, though, that the reason why the Christian is not afraid to suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from Christ, is because what Christ has promised us is greater than our life.
What Christ promises us in the gospel is life eternal, life that will never end, life that goes beyond death and beyond the grave, life in the resurrection that’s filled with glory and comfort and peace and joy and confidence. So that even the simple word that Jesus gives, “I forgive you all your sins,” gives us this confidence to suffer and to die. Because we know that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, nor heights, nor depth, nor any other created thing in all of the world will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
And this confidence that for us, for you and for me, that to live is Christ and so to die is gain, this confidence is our overcoming the world and the devil and our sinful flesh. I’ve told you this earlier, story a couple of times, but I love to imagine it, especially in this context. If you hated St. Paul, can you imagine? And you wanted to make the worst happen to St. Paul, what would you do?
Maybe like the, remember that gang in Jerusalem that decided that they wanted to kill Paul? They took that vow not to eat anything or to drink anything until Paul was dead. Now Paul lived for like 15 more years. I wonder at what point they’re like, “All right, fine, we give up.” But imagine, like we’re part of that group that’s vowed to not eat or drink anything until Paul’s dead. And we’re trying to figure out how we’re going to get him from the jail and how we’re going to take him and now we’re going to kill him.
Maybe we’re going to stone him or cut him up or do something like this. And it’s all great. We’re having fun trying to figure it out until one person raises their hand and says, “Well, hold on. I think this is great. I think we should kill Paul. But I was just reading this letter that he wrote to his friends in Philippi. And he said, ‘For me, to live is Christ, to die is gain.’ If we…” Do you see? If we kill him, we’re helping him out. Well, let’s not kill him then.
Let’s just torture him. You know, let’s just break his ankles and get him a bunch of paper cuts and throw him in the ocean or something like that. Let’s cause him affliction and say, “Well, that’s great. We should just torture Paul,” except for I was reading this letter that he wrote to his friends in Rome, and he says that that suffering is a benefit, that we rejoice in suffering because suffering produces patience and character and hope, and hope doesn’t disappoint us. He even rejoices in affliction. So what can you do to Paul? What can you do to Paul who’s made this promise that he would suffer everything, even death, rather than fall away from Christ?
Imagine how frustrating it would be to be the devil trying to get at Paul. And imagine, dear saints, how frustrating it must be to be the devil trying to get at you. Because these things are also true for you. For you to live is Christ. For you to die is gain. You are called to rejoice in the midst of suffering because Christ has suffered already for you.
So we with boldness answer the question, “Do you intend to continue steadfast in this confession and church and suffer all, even death, rather than fall away from it?” We say with great boldness, “I do, by the grace of God,” and may the grace of God grant it for Christ’s sake. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord.