It was early one Saturday
morning in February when the carriage pulled up to the stadium. The
elderly prisoner scraped his shin while getting out. But there was
no time to dwell on that. His day had come. And so the chief of
police marched the well-aged man into the stadium, to the boos and jeers of the
vast crowds. It had been a long night – scarcely any sleep, of
course. They'd found him late in a farm cottage, in the upper room.
He hadn't intended to be there, at first – hadn't planned to flee
the city when he'd heard they were looking for him – but the churches
were insistent, so he'd gone. But the powers-that-be had tracked him
down, so there he'd been. When they got there, the police, he'd come
downstairs and ordered a nice warm meal be prepared for them – no
sense in being unpleasant. Better to be hospitable to those who
catch and arrest you. That's what love looked like, he believed. In return, they
gave him time to pray. He'd stood and prayed for two hours in the
darkness of night, pouring out his soul to God, lifting up every
church he knew in all the world and its people by name, praying for
his own people and for his city and for the police, too. And then he'd
been ready to go. And now he was at the stadium, with twenty
thousand spectators looking on and the proconsul Lucius Statius
Quadratus waiting his arrival. But Polycarp couldn't help reminisce
for a moment as he crossed that irreversible line.
Polycarp had been raised
there in Smyrna – oh, beautiful Smyrna, splendid Smyrna! Founded
years before the Bethlehem birth of King David, it had attained great
things through the years – reputed to have been the place where the
legendary poet Homer was born, or so they boasted. During the long
centuries, it was broken down and demolished by Lydian conquerors,
dispersing the Smyrnaeans into village life for over three hundred
years, until Alexander the Great and his successors had the city
rebuilt on and beneath the slops of Mount Pagos. The people of
Smyrna liked to remember how their city had died and, after
centuries, come to life again. And they were proud, so proud, of
that city, their prosperous seaside city with its two harbors for the
shipping trade. They were proud, too, of their reputation for
loyalty, for patriotism, for faithfulness. Ever since they'd allied
with the Romans back during the Carthaginian wars, they'd been all-in
– Smyrna had been the first city on earth to build a temple where
Rome itself could be worshipped as a goddess. They were the
birthplace of the imperial cult.
It was there that
Polycarp grew up, born within one to five years after the deaths of
the Apostles Paul and Peter in Rome. Polycarp remembered hearing
those names a lot in his youth – he was the son, after all, of
Christian parents, themselves converted likely by missionaries sent
by Paul from Ephesus. Polycarp spent his Christian youth in that
city a fifth of a million strong; his boyish feet ran back and forth
between stone monuments commemorating the city's gift of gold crowns
as civic honors for meritorous citizens after they died – crowns
for the dead, enjoyed by no one. The whole city was like a crown on
Mount Pagos, where their main street, the Street of Gold, wound
'round the hillside – and yet for all the city's prosperity, not
all could share in it.
Polycarp was scarcely a
teenager when the Praetorian Guard declared Domitian emperor – an
autocratic tyrant. But by the time he was in his late twenties, the
Smyrnaean church had fallen on hard times. Christians were a deeply
unpopular minority in patriotic Smyrna, and the pressure was on.
They had, over the past decades, been successful in their evangelism,
especially in drawing off folks from the local synagogue – both
Jews and also Gentile God-fearers. And the synagogue, now under
rough taxation from Domitian, was pretty angry about it – they saw
the church as illegitimate, saw the church as dangerous. And so the
synagogue of Smyrna hated the church of Smyrna, so much so that it
consumed them, so much so that they would break the laws of Moses if
it would help them hound the Christians. So the synagogue community
in the city – well, some of its members had begun denouncing
various Christians before the Roman authorities, insisting that the
church was not a valid expression of the Jewish faith and so had no
right to the historic Jewish exemption from the imperial cult. They
spread all sorts of rumors about the church as a nefarious force in
civic life, charged Christians as unpatriotic and conspiratorial.
The result was that Smyrnaean Christians like Polycarp and his family
and friends were boxed out, excluded, deprived of economic
opportunity; they were sued, they were hounded, their houses were
robbed and vandalized from time to time. Needless to say, when
Sunday morning rolled 'round, there wasn't much to put in the
offering plate. But it was one Sunday morning that Polycarp huddled
with other Christians in a house to worship God, and a messenger came
to read a scroll delivered from a prophet exiled in Patmos.
Polycarp was one of the
first to hear the Revelation, and one of the first to hear the letter
dictated by the Risen Lord specifically to his church in Smyrna. And
what a relief it was – Polycarp remembers that Sunday in his late
twenties – just how simply and succinctly Jesus sympathized with
their situation. Jesus knew! Jesus saw! Jesus understood! “I
know your tribulation and your poverty,”
the Lord told them. He knew they didn't have much. He knew they
were scared and sad and shivering and suffering, huddled up and
hurting. Jesus knew. He saw them in their pain. How good it is to
know that Jesus sees, that Jesus knows, that Jesus understands what
we face, what we go through! How good to hear that Jesus turns no
blind eye to our aches and bruises and fears and griefs! Young
Polycarp heard that, and his soul was lightened.
He
heard, too, that Jesus knew “the slander of those who say
they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan”
(Revelation 2:9). Jesus heard the rumors about the church, the
slanders, the denunciations. He rejected them as false. And he also
rejected as false those who spread them. Jesus looked at the hostile
synagogue and saw it filled with the influence of the Evil One. That
synagogue collaborated with pagan powers and sought deeper
entanglement with the state. That synagogue failed to recognize
their own Messiah when the evangelists of Smyrna announced him to
them. They had dropped off the Abrahamic olive tree, as Paul
described (Romans 11:7; cf. 11:11-21). They were, in a deep sense,
lifeless. King Jesus Messiah of Israel looks at the synagogue in the
city of Smyrna, and the Messiah denounces them as illegitimate, mere
pretenders to the lofty name of Judah – there is no bright praise
in their mouth, only lies and calumnies. The synagogue community is,
in the eyes of the Risen Lord as John hears him, not even Jewish.
They had become a fraudulent parody of the Israel they were meant to
be – that's how far gone they'd become, driven by jealousy and
hatred of the church.
But
the church, on the other hand – Polycarp and his friends – are,
though they're materially poor, nevertheless praised by Jesus as
spiritually “rich,”
rich in all the ways that count the most. Polycarp learned in that
word that no outer circumstance could deprive him of what really
matters in life, which is being rich toward God, rich in his heart,
rich in his relationships with those who love the Jesus who gave them
life. Polycarp and his fellow believers are truly rich, Jesus says –
they, not the synagogue, are the real Israel, the people whom Jesus
chooses and elects, those who inherit the promises to the patriarchs
and prophets. They are the ones loyal to the Messiah who sits on
David's throne, they are the ones who share Abraham's faith in a God
who raises the dead. They are the truest expression of Israel's
faith, the most authentic Jews – for just like Paul said, “No
one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward
and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter
of the heart – by the Spirit, not by the letter: his praise is not
from man but from God” (Romans
2:28-29). Those in Smyrna's synagogue, Jesus says, have no praise
from him – their hearts are uncircumcised, their Jewishness is only
skin deep – but he has much praise for Smyrna's church, whose
hearts are circumcised by the Holy Spirit. The faithful church of
Smyrna is truly and authentically Jewish, deep down – even those of
other ethnic backgrounds, even those raised in pagan homes but now
turning to one God through a Jewish Messiah. Jesus, after all, told
the Smyrnaeans that he was “the First and the Last”
(Revelation 2:8). And in saying that, he identified himself as
Israel's God, who said through Isaiah, “Thus saith
Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Hosts: I am
the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god. … Listen
to me, O Jacob, and Israel whom I called! I am he: I am the First,
and I am the Last” (Isaiah
44:6; 48:12). Jesus is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the
End, the Creator and Redeemer who called Israel in the first place
and who holds all history in his hands – and not a thing happens
that's beyond his sovereign reach.
And
yet, Jesus warns the Smyrnaean church, for all the tribulation and
poverty and slander they face in their day in the late first century,
worse times will come. “You are about to suffer.
Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you
may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation”
(Revelation 2:10). What lurks around the corner – and this surely
shocked Polycarp to hear for the first time – is a time when some
of them will be arrested. They will be persecuted. They will be put
on trial. They will see the open hostility of society arrayed
violently against them. And Jesus tells them, when the messenger
reads the letter he dictated to John – Jesus tells them that some
of them sitting there that morning will be murdered if they stay
loyal to him.
That
is a pretty sobering word to hear at church! I'm sure it was for
Polycarp that day. He scarcely can imagine – even when poor and
harassed and slandered – that things would actually turn to
violence, that he really could face a risk like that. It's hard to
seriously believe, even when things are bad, that confessing the
gospel will ever literally become an act with physically deadly
consequences. But that's what Jesus says. It's hard to hear! It's
intimidating. And maybe this church has been living in fear, maybe
they've been worried about where things in their society are headed.
Maybe they see things getting worse and worse around them, more and
more hostile all around them, and they wonder where it will stop.
And Jesus says, first of all, that it will go down the darkest road,
that it will end in tears and blood, that it will get as ugly as
their worst-case scenarios. But Jesus also tells them, “Do
not fear what you are about to suffer”
(Revelation 2:10). Yes, things will get deadly. But worry not, fret
not, fear not. Because Jesus has bigger purposes for allowing the
devil to do this.
“The devil is about
to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested,” Jesus
emphasizes, “and for ten days you will have tribulation”
(Revelation 2:10). Jesus reminds them of Daniel and his three
friends, when they first went to Babylon, when they were tempted by
the luxurious offers of the king's own food and his own wine. But
they refused, and asked the chief eunuch to “test your
servants for ten days” with
“vegetables to eat and water to drink”
(Daniel 1:12). So the chief eunuch Ashpenaz “tested them
for ten days” (Daniel 1:14).
In the same way, Jesus says, the devil's coming violence will only
provide a platform for the church to show off Jesus – to
demonstrate that Jesus gives them strength beyond what synagogue or
state can imagine. The church must be allowed to show their faith
under fire, in the midst of this deadly tribulation, so that Jesus
can praise them all the more! So here Jesus tells them what's going
to happen – so they can spend the intervening time in training.
The church in Smyrna needs to get ready. They need to set aside any
distracting programs, they need to give up their time-wasting
hobbies, they need to make sure they're serious and committed. If
there's a test coming, they need to study, need to train, need to
disciple and be discipled. The elder members of the church need to
train up young men like Polycarp, and the children among them, in a
serious Christianity. None of this shallow stuff. Older believers
need to get serious about readying themselves and the next
generations – they cannot afford to lose their kids and grandkids
to trendiness, shallowness, and worldliness. It's time to get ready.
Polycarp
took Jesus' message to heart. He wasn't yet out of his twenties when
the Emperor Domitian died and was replaced by Nerva, who set John
free from Patmos. Polycarp had grown up occasionally seeing John.
In fact, Polycarp in his young days had met and learned from a number
of believers who traveled from Jerusalem and Judaea and Galilee after
the war – believers who had been among the hundreds to see, meet,
touch the risen Jesus, eyewitnesses of the resurrection truth.
Polycarp learned from them, and learned from John especially. In
Polycarp, John saw a solid man, a man who embodied what a church
leader should be. So within the next ten years, we're told, Polycarp
was “appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna” at the hands of
“apostles in Asia.”
After
John's death, Polycarp sought to guide the Smyrnaean church according
to Jesus' words. Polycarp knew them all by name – Gavia and
Daphnus and Eutecnus and Attalus and Crescens and that dear woman
named Alce, passionate and devoted in spite of her pagan brother
Nicetas and his son Herodes. One day, soldiers came and marched the
Syrian bishop Ignatius, at least nineteen years Polycarp's senior,
through Smyrna. Ignatius saw the Smyrnaean church as “mercifully
endowed with every spiritual gift, filled with faith and love.” He
urged Polycarp to “press on in your race and to exhort all people,
that they may be saved.” He advised Polycarp that “it's the mark
of a great athlete to be bruised and yet still conquer.” And he
encouraged the Smyrnaeans to all follow Polycarp's lead: “Whatever
he approves is also pleasing to God.” Within months, Polycarp
wrote a letter to the believers in Philippi where Ignatius had been
taken next, telling them, “If we please [Jesus] in this present
world, we'll receive the world-to-come as well, inasmuch as he
promised to raise us from the dead and that if we prove to be
citizens worthy of him, we'll also reign with him – if, that is, we
continue to believe! … If we should suffer for the sake of his
name, let us glorify him.” Polycarp, now hitting forty, was
getting ready.
Down
through the decades of his ministry, Polycarp kept faithful. He
preached and taught what he'd learned from apostles. He led with
dignity. His unschooled mind was no less keen than the best-trained
philosophers, and he put it in the service of the gospel, diligently
making the case to city councilmen and passersby alike. But he also
presided at the table, celebrated the communion of his church
community, and stayed strong even when times were tough and money was
tight. Polycarp rose in prominence in church circles – in his
early eighties, he was sent to Rome to represent all the churches of
Asia in a meeting with Bishop Anicetus, and while there, he rebuked
heretics and led many back to the authentic gospel through his
teaching. Then he came home again.
And
that's when the persecution broke out. First, select believers from
Philadelphia were carted to Smyrna to stand trial before Quadratus
the proconsul – himself a very persuasive man, able to launch into
a philosophical debate at the drop of a hat. Then some Smyrnaean
church leaders came under fire. And that's when the crowds started
calling for Quadratus to go for the head – to catch Polycarp, “the
father of the Christians.” Now police chief Herodes and his father
Nicetas has brought him into custody, presented him before the
jeering crowds in the stadium. Now Polycarp, in his old age, was to
stand trial. Now were those “ten days of tribulation”
Jesus had warned him about decades in advance. Now was the time he'd
trained for. Now was the time to not fear.
The
proconsul began openly questioning Polycarp, urging Polycarp to be a
good Smyrnaean and patriot, to just pray to the emperor, swear an
oath by the emperor's guardian spirit. If only the proconsul could
sway Polycarp, it would devastate the church. The proconsul urged
Polycarp to reject the church he'd taught, to denounce the Christians
as criminals, to call them godless. Instead, Polycarp groaned,
looked up to heaven, and urged God to cast away the godlessness, the
atheism, of the pagan Greeks and Romans. The proconsul baited him
again, promising Polycarp his freedom if only he'd curse Jesus and
leave that life behind him. But Polycarp objected, “For eighty-six
years I've been serving him, and he's done me no wrong. How can I
blaspheme my King who saved me? … Listen clearly: I am a Christian.
And if you intend to learn the message of Christianity, appoint a
day and hear me out.” Polycarp would gladly dare and make his case
with the proconsul as an audience.
Quadratus
threatened Polycarp, first with wild beasts, then with fire. But
Polycarp, with age-old joints and achy bones and wrinkled skin, told
him, “You threaten with a fire that burns for an hour and is soon
put out, because you don't know the fire of the coming judgment and
everlasting punishment that's stored up for the ungodly.” Refusing
to compromise, Polycarp called on the proconsul to move along and do
what he had to do. Courage and joy filled Polycarp's heart, even as
the crowds began to boo Polycarp as “the destroyer of our gods.”
The
pagans hated Polycarp. So did the synagogue community, just as Jesus
had seen. Even though it was the sabbath when Moses had forbidden
work and the gathering of wood and the lighting of fires (Exodus
35:1-3; Numbers 15:32-36), the synagogue members of Smyrna worked to
collect firewood to help burn Polycarp. No wonder Jesus called them
what he did. Once tied to the pyre, Polycarp prayed and gave thanks
to “the God of angels and powers and all creation and the entire
race of the righteous who live before you.” And once he said amen,
the soldiers lit the wood ablaze, and the flames billowed around
Polycarp like a sail in the wind. What do you think was on Bishop
Polycarp's mind as the wood beneath his feet caught that first deadly
spark?
I
have to think that his mind was firmly fixed on Jesus. Jesus is the
heart of it all. Jesus Christ is the Lord who knows his way through
death and out the other side. Smyrna boasted they'd been restored to
life like a phoenix from the ashes, but Jesus is “the
First and the Last, who died and came to life”
(Revelation 2:8). If there's someone to trust when life and death
are the stakes, Jesus is the man! And so Polycarp believed Jesus
when Jesus told him, “Don't fear what you're about to
suffer.” And Polycarp
accepted this one command from the lips of Jesus: “Be
faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life”
(Revelation 2:10). Smyrna bragged about its political faithfulness
to Rome and her emperor – but Jesus wants Smyrnaean Christians like
Polycarp to be faithful to him, the Lord Messiah, the King of Israel
and their Redeemer, the King who saves us. Faithful not just when
there's prosperity and ease and comfort, but faithful when it costs,
faithful when it hurts, faithful when it's uncomfortable, faithful
from poverty to persecution, from distress to death.
When
Polycarp was questioned, he warned that proconsul that God has in
store for the ungodly a “fire of the coming judgment and of
everlasting punishment.” And he learned about that from John who
took down this letter from Jesus. Because Jesus promises that those
who trust in him and are loyal to him are the ones who will in the
end be free from the fire. “The one who conquers,”
the one who overcomes through faithful witness to Jesus even under
fire, “will not be hurt by the second death”
(Revelation 2:11). The kind of death that keeps funeral homes in
business is not the worst thing. It is not the biggest death.
There's a bigger death, a second death, the death that involves
destruction in hell and the eternal smoke of torment. Next to that,
the first death is a pittance, a nothing. Polycarp has nothing to
fear in the first death, so long as he can't be hurt by the second.
Instead,
Jesus tells him, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give
you the crown of life”
(Revelation 2:10). The Smyrnaeans loved to hand out those golden
crowns to good citizens after they died. Polycarp spent his boyish
years running between monuments that said just that: “The people
give a crown to so-and-so.” Grave markers. Crowns for the dead.
But what Jesus offers is nothing like that. Jesus “was
dead and came to life”
(Revelation 2:8). He was crucified, he bled, he died to save John
and Polycarp and me and you. But then he came to life, he rose from
the dead more permanently than Smyrna – and “we know
that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death
no longer has dominion over him”
(Romans 6:9). To Jesus has been granted a truly “indestructible
life” (Hebrews 7:16)! Jesus
declares, “Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the
Living One – I died, but look, I'm alive forevermore, and I have
the keys of Death and Hades!”
(Revelation 1:17-18). Jesus is alive, hallelujah! Jesus has the
keys, hallelujah! And Jesus is giving crowns of life, hallelujah.
Wreaths like these crown the wearers as victors in the strife, as
overcomers, as those who instead of the second death enter into a new
life beyond the grave, as those destined for glorious resurrection
when Jesus will one day “transform our lowly body to be
like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject
all things to himself”
(Philippians 3:21). Jesus has crowns to give away, crowns of life,
for overcomers.
In
the end of Polycarp's journey here, when those fires were lit, I'm
sure that's the promise from his youth that he was thinking about.
The eyewitnesses who wrote down what happened that day call him “an
apostolic and prophetic teacher in our times, and a bishop of the catholic church in Smyrna, for every saying that he uttered from his
mouth was accomplished and will be accomplished. … Through his
endurance, he overcame the unrighteous ruler and thus received the
crown of immortality. Rejoicing with the apostles and all the
righteous, he glorifies the Almighty God and Father and praises our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls and Pilot of our bodies
and Shepherd of the catholic church throughout the world.”
Polycarp, burned as a martyr with love in his heart in his old age,
well into his eighties, after a lifetime of faithful ministry – he
overcame. He got the crown of life that Jesus promised, because
Polycarp was faithful from youth to old age and even unto death. He
passed the test. Now he belongs to that “great cloud of
witnesses” watching us
run our race (Hebrews 12:1).
As
for us, most of us here have little expectation of ever facing
physical persecution for our faith. We risk no capital punishment in
living out the good news of Jesus. Neither did Polycarp, yet, when
John wrote. Even at that time, Polycarp did already have to choose
between fidelity and prosperity. Few of us here have ever had to
choose between being faithful to God and faithful to the economy.
But those times do come, as Christians are more and more slandered
and vilified, as Christians lose out on worldly opportunities, as
Christians learn anew what it means to place no trust in princes –
or in constitutions and institutions (cf. Psalm 146:3). In all these
things, we'll each wish the next generation had been better trained
in the gospel – because tribulation will come. But even now, the
Christian life for many of us is one with challenges: disappointment
and dismay, sickness and sorrow. Not all of us have rosy outward
circumstances. Yet Jesus tells us: no matter how much is in our
wallets, we can be spiritually rich in all the ways that matter most.
But we must be loyal in times easy and hard. We must devote
ourselves to Christ's mission to build us into a healthy
multi-generational church, a church serious about courage and
committed to joy, a church faithfully setting aside fear but ready
for times of testing.
We
could do worse than to imitate Polycarp as he imitated the apostles
who imitated their Lord Jesus. We must be a healthy and faithful
church, and we can't do that without each striving to be healthy and
faithful ourselves, like Polycarp was. Each of us can be spiritually
rich. Each of us is called to be faithful. And for how we live and
the choices we make, there are real consequences beyond the tombstone
– a second death or a crown of life. Those things hinge on our
faithfulness now, in each day and in each hour, whether we cling to
grace and let the life of Jesus change us from the inside-out.
Because Jesus is the First and the Last. He was dead, but he's alive
forevermore! Wherever death touches you, you have a Savior who gives
life the last word! Hallelujah! Each of us must be able to say,
with Polycarp: “I've served Jesus, and he has done me no wrong.
How could I be unfaithful to my King who saved me?” How indeed!
May the Spirit that burns hotter than persecution's flames burn also
in us, to glorify Jesus in our faithfulness in fearsome days. Let us
press on and seek the salvation and discipleship of everyone we meet.
Though bruised in the journey, let us overcome with Jesus by faith.
Amen!
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