A Martyr's Hope

3/28/25 (Luke 21)

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

As the time for the Lord Jesus’ departure was drawing near, He gave His disciples some guidance regarding the end and the need to remain faithful, even unto death.

He forewarns,

“You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. ¹⁷ You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ By your endurance you will gain your lives” (Lk. 21:16-19).

I think sometimes as modern Christians we lose sight of the bloody history of the Christian faith. Especially when “persecution” in American Christianity is an unkind word spoken to us at work.

Furthermore, we pray for protection on the roads every time we travel, losing sight of the fact that Christians in the first and second century were routinely killed for their faith—Now, I’m not condemning prayers for God to keep us safe in different circumstances, but I do want us to recognize that God hasn’t promised to each of us that we’ll die in old age, from old age.

Jesus says that people, even close friends and family, would deliver the disciples over to death. What is more shocking than this though, is that even if one would die, not a head of their hair would truly perish. He’s not guaranteeing that they would avoid martyrdom—consider the martyrdoms of Stephen (Acts 7:60) and James (Acts 12:2).

Rather, he’s showing that they would inherit eternal life. In comparison to the true and coming life, martyrdom wouldn’t even be the equivalent of losing a single hair of one’s head.

We should value life on earth. We should thank God for it. We shouldn’t needlessly put ourselves in harm’s way. Yet, we must not lose sight of the fact that true life awaits us after we depart from this one. As the apostle Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21).

To conclude, I want to share an excerpt from the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. He was one of the early church fathers who was condemned to death by the Roman authorities and was martyred around the year 107 A.D.

As he is being condemned to death he writes these words to the church at Rome:

“You can do me no greater kindness than to suffer me to be sacrificed to God while the place of sacrifice is still prepared.”^[1]

And shortly thereafter he says:

“I am writing to all the Churches to tell them all that I am, with all my heart, to die for God—if only you do not prevent it. I beseech you not to indulge your benevolence at the wrong time. Please let me be thrown to the wild beasts; through them I can reach God. I am God’s wheat; I am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts that I may end as the pure bread of Christ.”^[2]

He was so committed to Christ not only in life, but in death, that he asks his fellow Christians not to ruin his opportunity to be martyred! I can’t imagine many Christians today feel this way, as we’d probably do anything we could to get out of it. But for Ignatius, death was merely the gateway to true life, and he welcomed it with open arms.

May the Lord Jesus give us this incredible resolve to serve Him in life, or in death. That we would be committed to the very end, knowing that even if we perish down here, truly a hair of our head isn’t lost before our Father.

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^[1] Gerald G. Walsh, “The Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Apostolic Fathers, trans. Francis X. Glimm, Joseph M.-F. Marique, and Gerald G. Walsh, vol. 1 of The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1947), 108.

^[2] Ibid., 109.