Almighty God, who has given many the boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for their faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.From Common of the Saints, Of a Martyr, Book of Common Prayer, p. 246-247
The New
Testament suggests persecution is a likely consequence of Christian belief: Jesus in
Mark 13:9-11 does not say if they hand you over to councils, but that they will
hand you over …
Today for
affluent Christians such passages are viewed as references to a
time long ago. But for
Christians in the burgeoning churches of the Middle East and North Africa, persecution and
martyrdom are modern realities.
In his
book, A Distant Grief (published 2006), Ugandan writer and pastor Kefa Sempangi
tells of a certain Easter Sunday - getting confronted by five of Idi Amin’s thugs who were going to kill
him.
"Despite the growing shadow of Idi Amin, Easter morning, 1973, began as a most joyous occasion for the redeemed church. The sun had just risen and the sky was empty of clouds when the first people began arriving at the compound where we worshiped. They came from almost every tribe, from the Baganda, the Besoga, the Bunyacoli, the Acoli and the Langi, the Baguari and the Bakisu. They came from as far away as Masaka, a town 80 miles southwest of Kampala. There were old men with walking sticks and young women with babies on their backs. There were small children with flowers in their arms. There were doctors and lawyers, businessmen and farmers, cotton growers and government workers, only a few traveled by car or taxi. Most came on foot or rode bicycles. Others crowded into lorries so lopsided they seemed ready to collapse at any moment. By nine o'clock, over 7,000 people were gathered. It was the largest crowd ever to attend Sunday service at the redeemed church. When there were no more places in the compound, people climbed trees or sat on the roofs of the lorries. A few large groups set up in nearby yards with their own amplifying systems and hundreds stood in the streets. Before the service, the elders and I met in the vestry, an empty house by the compound, to pray. We felt deeply the hunger in the hearts of the people who had gathered for worship. We knew their desire to hear the Word of God and prayed that their lives would be transformed by its power. As we poured our hearts out to the Father in agonizing intercession, desperate scenes from the previous week flashed again in my mind. I saw a face burned beyond recognition and a woman huddled in a corner weeping. I saw a crowd of soldiers standing in the park cheering. And I heard the sound of boot crunching against bone. I remembered the arrogance of the mercenaries and the dreamlike deadness of my heart. And once again the triumph of evil overwhelmed me. I felt a deep fear. I myself had fallen, how could I hope to strengthen others on this Easter? Who was I to feed God's children in this most desperate hour? What words could I speak? My brothers and sisters needed courage to stand firm in the growing terror. They needed strength to sustain them in suffering. They didn't need my sermon, they didn't need my thoughts on the resurrection. My father had been right. In such times, men do not need words, he had said, they need power."
"I took my Bible and went to preach that Easter morning with new courage. My message was the suffering of Jesus Christ. I spoke of His triumph over evil and His victory over death. I spoke of the power of His resurrection. And behind me were the elders, sitting on a bench and praying. In front of me, thousands of unfamiliar faces. There were believers in need of encouragement and unbelievers in need of salvation. At 12:30 the sun was pouring hot on our heads and I tried to close the service." That's three and a half hours later.
"The people refused to leave. We have not come for a church service, someone shouted, we have come to hear the Word of God. Go rest yourself and then come back and preach again. The crowd clapped and shouted their approval. I went to the vestry for a brief rest and returned in the mid-afternoon. Hardly a person had moved. I preached for three more hours. And this time when I finished, no one objected. The sun was going down and everyone knew the hour had come to close the meeting. It was not safe to travel after dark. We didn't know whether we'd ever see each other again, or when God might call us home, but we went out in peace because we had seen with our eyes the salvation of the Lord. And with a loud 'Amen' from the people and a final chorus from the choir, the Easter service ended and I turned to the elders and we embraced praising God. It seemed as if days instead of hours had passed since we had met for prayer. I was exhausted but there was joy in my heart. God had answered our prayers. He had broken bread and fed His people. I had to push my way through the crowd and when I finally arrived at the house, I was exhausted and too tired to notice the men behind me until they had closed the door. There were five of them. They stood between me and the door, pointing their rifles at my face. Their own faces were scared with the distinctive tribal cuttings of the Kakwa tribe and they were dressed casually in flowered shirts and bell-bottom pants and wore sunglasses. Although 1 had never seen any of them before, I recognized them immediately, they were the Secret Police of the State Research Bureau, Amin's Nubian assassins. For a long moment no one said anything and then the tallest man, obviously the leader, spoke, 'We're going to kill you,' he said. 'If you have something to say, say it before you die.'
"He spoke quietly but his face was twisted with hatred.
I could only stare at him. For a sickening moment I felt the full weight of his rage. We had never met before but his deepest desire was to tear me to pieces. My mouth felt heavy and my limbs began to shake and everything left my control. 'They'll not need to kill me,' I thought to myself. 'I'm just going to fall over. I'm going to fall over dead and I'll never see my family again.'
"I thought of Pinina, home alone with Damali. What would happen to them when I was gone? From far away I heard a voice. And I was astonished to realize it was my own. 'I do not need to plead my own cause,' I heard myself say. 'I am a dead man already. My life is dead and hidden in Christ. It is your lives that are in danger. You are dead in your sins. I will pray to God that after you've killed me, He will spare you from eternal destruction.'
"The tall one took a step toward me and then stopped. In an instant his face was changed, his hatred had turned to curiosity. He lowered his gun and motioned to the others to do the same. And they stared at him in amazement but they took their guns away from my face. And then the tall one spoke again. 'Will you pray for us now?' he asked.
"I thought my ears were playing a trick. I looked at him and then at the others. My mind was completely paralyzed. The tall one repeated his question more loudly and I could see that he was becoming impatient. 'Yes, I will pray for you,' I answered.
"My voice sounded bolder even to myself. 'I will pray to the Father in heaven, please bow your heads and close your eyes.'
"The tall one motioned to the others again and together the five of them lowered their heads. I bowed my own head but I kept my eyes open.
"The Nubian's request seemed to me a strange trick. 'Any minute,' I thought to myself, 'my life will end. I do not want to die with my eyes closed.'
"'Father in heaven,' I prayed, 'You who have forgiven men in the past, forgive these men also. Do not let them perish in their sins but bring them unto Yourself.'
"It was a simple prayer, prayed in deep fear, but God looked beyond my fears and when I lifted my head, the men standing in front of me were not the same men who had followed me into the vestry. Something had changed in their faces. It was the tall one who spoke first. His voice was bold but there was no contempt in his words. 'You have helped us,' he said, 'and we will help you. We will speak to the rest of our company and they will leave you alone. Do not fear for your life. It is in our hands and you will be protected.'
"I was too astonished to reply. The tall one only motioned for the others to leave. He himself stepped to the doorway and then he turned to speak one last time.
"'I saw widows and orphans in your congregation,' he said. 'I saw them singing and giving praise. Why are they happy when death is so near?'
"It was still difficult to speak but I answered him. 'Because they are loved by God. Because He has given them life and will give life to those they love because they died in Him.'
"His question seemed strange to me but he did not stay to explain. He only shook his head in perplexity and walked out the door. I stared at the open door of the vestry for several moments and then sat down on a nearby straw mat. My knees were no longer strong and I could feel my whole body tremble. I couldn't think clearly. Less than ten minutes before, I had considered myself a dead man. And even though I was surrounded by 7,000 people, there was no human being to whom I could appeal. I couldn't ask Kiwanuka to use his connections. I couldn't ask the elders to pray. I could not appeal to the mercy of the Nubian killers. My mouth had frozen and I had no clever words to speak. But in that moment with death so near, it was not my sermon that gave me courage, nor an idea from Scripture, it was Jesus Christ the living Lord."
We were, I knew, a needy people. We could not afford to be answered in abstractions. We could not afford to separate doctrine and life. Even our language reflects this need for the concrete. “Truth” for a non-westernized African does not refer to a statement’s correspondence with a fact. Truth is a quality of things. A mango tree is true if it bears sweet mangoes, a house is true if it is upright. A man is true if he knows how to run his home, control his temper, resist gossip.
A religion is true if it works, if it meets all the needs of the people. A religion that speaks only to man’s soul and not to his body is not true. Africans make no distinction between the spiritual and the physical. The spiritual is not a category among categories but the lens through which all of life is viewed. A tribesman from my village knows that cutting a tree, climbing a mountain, making a fire, planting a garden and bowing before the gods are all religious acts.
Kefa Sempangi and his family made their way to Philadelphia, where
a group of Christians began caring
for them. One day his wife said, “Tomorrow I am going
to go and buy some clothes for the children,” and
immediately she and her husband broke into tears. Because of the constant threat of death under which
they had so long lived, that was the first time in many years they had
dared even speak the word
tomorrow.
Their terrifying experiences forced them to realize
what is true of every person: there is no
assurance of tomorrow.
Here is a quote on what happened to his spiritual life while in Philadephia -
The biggest change came to my prayer life. In Uganda I had prayed with a deep sense of urgency. I refused to leave my knees until I was certain I had been in the presence of the resurrected Christ. It was not just the gift I needed. I needed to see the Giver. I needed to know that the God of orphans and widows, the God of the helpless, heard my prayers. Now, after a year in Philadelphia, the urgency was gone. When I prayed publicly I was more concerned to be theologically correct than to be in God’s presence. Even in private my prayers were no longer the helpless cries of a child. They were spiritual tranquilizers, thoughts that made no contact with anything outside themselves. More and more I found myself coming to God with vague requests for gifts I did not expect.
The positive results of loving God wholeheartedly are
many. God will bring good from very
terrible events and circumstances, personally and corporately.
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