Reflections on Ignatius

I've recently been studying some early church history and have been thinking about the early Christians attitudes towards martyrdom in contrast to those held by many Western Christians today. We can find several writings from the second century that help us to understand the attitudes of those early Christians towards martyrdom, the most dramatic of which are recorded in the "acts of the martyrs," which retell the arrest, trial, and death of various martyrs. In addition we learn of the attitudes of early Christians towards martyrdom through other Christian writings of which one of the most valuable is probably the set of seven letters that the aged Bishop Ignatius of Antioch wrote on his way to martyrdom.

The most significant letter to help us understand the attitude that Ignatius held towards martyrdom can be found in the letter he wrote from Smyrna to the church in Rome, after his arrest, while on his way to Rome to die as a martyr. Somehow, Ignatius had heard that Christians in Rome were considering the possibility of freeing him from death. He did not look upon this with favor as he was ready to seal his witness with his blood. He viewed any move on the part of the Christians in Rome to save him as an obstacle to his goal. In this letter he wrote to them:

"I fear your kindness, which may harm me. 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."

Ignatius views martyrdom as the highest attainment of imitating the passion of His God, Jesus Christ. As he faces the ultimate sacrifice, Ignatius believes that he begins to become a disciple and therefore asks that the Christians in Rome simply pray not that he be freed, but that he may have the strength to face every trial. He goes on in the letter to say:

"... so that I may not only be called a Christian, but also behave as such. My love is crucified. I no longer savor corruptible food but wish to taste the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, and his blood I wish to drink, which is an immortal drink. When I suffer, I shall be free in Jesus Christ, and with him shall rise again in freedom. I am God's wheat, to be ground by the teeth of beasts, so that I may be offered as pure bread of Christ."

I believe that we can learn from Ignatius of Antioch the attitude that many early Christians held towards martyrdom. An attitude of embracing that which Jesus suffered with great honor and joy. An attitude that enables us to look at persecution and martyrdom as a priviledge that God grants to some of His followers.

Martyrdom is not something that we should seek out but it is something that we should wholeheartedly embrace should we be given that gift. I sometimes fear that because the Western church has become so comfort oriented we have steered dangerously far away from Biblical teachings on suffering, persecution and martyrdom. Should we truly wish to be Jesus' disciples, and live our lives wholeheartedly for Him, we must once again embrace the attitude towards persecution and martyrdom that the early Christians held.

We often times speak of seeing the Gospel preached to the unreached Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists of the world, and should we truly desire to see these precious people come to faith in Christ, we must be willing to lay down everything, even our very own lives for them. We must seek to know God not only in His joys but also in His hardships and sufferings. We must seek to know Him in His greatest victory, the victory that He attained through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. We must say as the Apostle Paul did:

"that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:10,11

Now I begin to be a disciple. Let fire and cross, flocks of beasts, broken bones, dismemberment, come upon me, so long as I attain to Jesus Christ. IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH

Peace,

Matthew Pascal

Beware of Blogspot.com Slackers!

I know, I know - long time no blog. I'll be back soon though, I promise. Life has been hectic lately, and I am currently transitioning into a new community for the next month or so, and that has been occupying most of my time over the past few weeks. Once I get my feet back on the ground, I'll start posting again.

I'm thinking that over the next month my posts will deviate from their normal nature a bit, and that instead of my usual ramblings I will write some short daily meditations. I'm going to be taking some time for rest, reflection and restoration over the next month and I would like to post some thoughts on that as the days go by.

And so until then, peace to you all.

M.P.

Falling Stars

I noticed a few days ago that the star which is usually located at the top left hand corner of my blog's template has disappeared. I'm not sure where it has fallen off to...

Any ideas on how to get it back?

A Book and a Woman

Here is a funny little addition to my last post that has to do with one of my first big goof ups when I was learning Arabic.

I was on the street chatting with a friend one day about three or four months after arriving into the Arab world. I was trying my hardest to use the limited amount of Arabic vocabulary I had learnt by that point and was trying my best to understand what my friend Abdulla was saying to me. Well at one point I thought that he asked me if I would like to go back to his house with him to get a book from his sister that would help me in learning Arabic. I began to very enthusiastically express my gratitude for the offer and was telling him how wonderful that would be. So we took off down the road and a few minutes later arrived at his house. Well within five minutes after arriving I realized that about 10 of his relatives had also shown up and were all trying to talk with me. Obviously I had no idea what was going on but just assumed the reason I was surrounded by these 10 extremely excited Arabs was that I was a foreigner visiting their home. Hospitality is extremely important in the Arab culture and entertaining guests and visitors takes priority over anything else that is going on at the time. So here I was thinking that all of this commotion was simply because they were excited to have me, a foreigner, in their home.

After about 10 minutes of this I began to wonder where the book was, and furthermore where my friend Abdulla had gone.

Well a few minutes later he showed back up with, "The book."

He walked into the room with his 21 year old sister who I had agreed to marry! Yup, I was getting engaged!

The Arabic words for “book” and “engagement” are extremely similar, and my friend Abdulla had actually asked me if I wanted to go to his house to become engaged to his sister, not to get a book, and I had enthusiastically said yes!

So there I was with a very limited amount of Arabic, surrounded by an entire extended family – aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters – trying to figure out how to get myself out of that one…

Ah – the joys of learning another language!

Peace,

M. Pascal

Hunger and a Woman

Seeing how most of my posts are somewhat serious, I figure it’s time to loosen up the ole belt and joke around a bit. If you don’t mind, I wanna make fun of myself for a second or 3.

I made a fairly humorous linguistic mistake recently that I think is worth writing about.

First a tiny bit of background information regarding the French language. In French, when you say that you are hungry, you actually say that you have hunger. So if I want to say that I’m hungry, I would literally say “I have hunger.” Well the French words for 'hunger' and 'woman' are quite similar, and if you don’t know all of the French pronunciation rules you could very easily pronounce the two words exactly the same.

And so here is what happened…

I live in a dormitory type building with about 20 other single people and we have a large kitchen that we all share. A few weeks ago when I walked into the kitchen to cook my dinner, I tried to tell the others who were also there that I was hungry. However, I instead announced in a fairly loud voice:

“I have a woman!”

How’s that for a conversation starter?!?!

Peace,

M. Pascal

The Socially Active Trend

It seems to me that being an advocate for the poor or a socially active person is becoming more and more trendy these days in America. You can find socially and politically active young people on university campuses all across the country who are calling for social change. People are expressing their discontentment with what are very real social injustices. There are more and more groups forming that get together for weekly "pot-luck dinners" to discuss these things. In the aftermath of "Katrina" I expect more and more people will be verbally expressing their anger and discontentment over the social injustices in which poor face, and that these advocates for the poor will become more visible then they already are.

I love that this is happening, however I do sometimes find myself getting a bit annoyed by some of these socially active types. My concern is that many of these people are involved in social justice issues simply because it has become a trendy thing amongst certain groups of people. Furthermore, it seems like not to many people are truly willing to "put their money where their mouth is" and prophetically act out the scene in which they are describing.

It is one thing to go to a three day conference on social justice issues, but it is an all together separate thing to take the much more costly path of voluntarily re-locating oneself to live among the poor (who were without a doubt being discussed at the conference) in inner-city America (or elsewhere in the world) for the next five, ten, fifteen or forty years.

It is one thing to verbally speak out against the inequalities that the poor face in regards to education and health care but it is an all together separate thing to give up a higher paying and more prestigious job to go and teach in a run-down under-funded inner-city public school, or to start and operate a health care clinic for the poor when you could be making six figures as a doctor in nice suburban hospital.

I have some friends who most people would label "raging liberals," and although I agree with them on several issues that revolve around fighting poverty, social injustices, etc., I do find myself sometimes getting annoyed by the apparent lack of action that these let's fight social injustice types seem to be willing to put forth.

It seems that nowadays many people are game for advocacy work, but few are game for taking the much more costly paths. In my opinion a reason for this is because of how trendy it has become to wear a T-shirt with an icon of Che Guevara's face on it, go to a rally, write some letters to Senators and then return back home until the next one roles around in six months. If you are going to do that, I would encourage you to at least go out and buy a good book (and read it!) on Ernesto "Che" Guevara so you actually know a bit about his life and who he was instead of just thinking that he was some cool countercultural dude who was fighting against - you know man - against like, like, stuff...

In the Faces of the Laughing, Crying and Dying

I have spent the past few days with a contemporary Christian musician, his family and his band. I became friends with him and his family several years ago, and was able to connect and hang out with them all this past Thursday and Friday while they were in Paris to perform a show as part of their European tour. I went and met them Thursday evening before the concert and then spent the day with them on Friday. Friday happened to be this mans’ birthday, so we all went to a nice little café next to Notre Dame Cathedral for a birthday lunch, and then afterwards spent some time seeing the sights in Paris. It was great to spend the day catching up with them, as it had been a few years since I saw them last.

However, there is something that came up during the concert that I’m battling with. He sings a song (which was actually written by the late Rich Mullins) entitled “I See You,” and in this song the lyrics to the chorus say “Everywhere I go I see You.” After the song was finished, he told the audience how when he had been driving through the Swiss Alps the day before he had seen God in the scenery. He said that when he crossed over the border from Switzerland to France earlier that day he had seen God. He talked about how he could see God in the faces of many of the thousands of French Christians who were at the show, while they were worshiping the Creator of the universe. I do not doubt these things at all, as I also can see God in these types of people and places.

But there are many times when I can’t see God.

I often times can’t see Him in the face of a young child that is dying from an easily preventable disease, simply because his family can’t afford to purchase the medicine. I often times can’t see Him in the faces of two little girls I know that were raped by a man with AIDS, who they trusted and called “daddy.” I often times can’t see Him in the hungry bodies of malnourished children who I have lived next door to in a refugee camp in Northeastern Africa. I often times can’t see Him in the tears of a woman who is crying because she never had the chance to learn how to read and write, simply because of her sex.

Yes, there are many times when I can’t see God.

However in these horrible situations I have learned that I must trust God is there, and trust in His ultimate sovereignty, for I know that a God small enough to completely understand isn’t big enough to worship. I have peace in knowing that I will never fully be able to understand why so many things are the way they are in this world, and why God allows so much suffering to continue. I have realized that I must choose to continue to follow God and to trust in Him even when I can’t see Him, feel Him, touch Him or hear Him. I am called to trust in His peace, love, goodness and kindness even when I can’t see these things with my earthly eyes. And I strive to do this, although I often times fail.

But with that said, this song still upsets me a bit.

I believe this Christian musician is a very integrous man. I believe that when he stands on a stage in front of 40,000 fans and sings the words “everywhere I go I see You” that he truly means it. This man is one of the all time most popular contemporary Christian musicians, and I do not think that he would sing words to a song that were not true for him in his life. And so I am upset because I can’t say that this is always true in my life, and I desire for it to be.

I long to be able to honestly say to God, everywhere I go I see You.

God help me to have the revelation that my worshiping friend has had, so that I can look into the eyes of the dying and see You, so that I can look into the eyes of the suffering and see You, and so that I can look at that which could possibly even lead me to question Your very existence, and say that I can see You.

Peace,

Matthew Pascal