Those Foreign Martyrs

We tend to crown folks as martyrs from those who are “over there.”  We just can’t muster up the sympathy for, or respect due, martyrs who are nearby.   Neighbors just aren’t to be respected as heroes!  They are – just neighbors.  Common folk disconnected from those super-hero martyrs who come from somewhere over there.

It is a kind-of proximity disorientation.  A moral far-sightedness.  Holiness is a distant thing which cannot be near us;  it cannot be seen, lest we become too uncomfortable with it.   

An understandable human condition, indeed, when we consider the gravity of our fallen nature.  We are woefully derelict and shamefully unacceptable to a holy and just and good God!  Such qualities as holiness, we imagine, must be kept from coming too close to our sinfulness. It is found “over there.”

(Ah, but we who are justified by His blood and saved by Him, alone, thankfully and humbly accept our status as fellow heirs of the Kingdom of God – life eternal.)

You are surrounded with martyrs when you gather with His people and break the bread! Rejoice!

26 Nov.,  2022, p.m.