A couple months ago, I wrote about and contemplated the murder of Fr. Samaan, a Coptic Orthodox priest in Cairo, at the hands of a knife-wielding attacker. Now, in the middle of celebrating Christ’s Nativity and preparing to celebrate Christ’s baptism in the Jordan river on Theophany, I find myself drawn again to consider the faith and example of the martyrs throughout history as I read about the slaughter of eight Coptic Christians and one police officer in a shooting in a church on the outskirts of Cairo.

There have been martyrs for Christ ever since Christ was born. This fact was made especially apparent to me a few days ago when the Orthodox Church celebrated the memory of the 14,000 infants killed by Herod after the birth of Jesus (see Matthew 2:13-23). Herod, viewing the birth of the Jewish Messiah Who was prophesized to become the King of Israel as a threat to his power, flew into a rage and ordered that all the male children two years or younger be killed. Those defenseless children became the first ones martyred for Christ. Now being numbered among the righteous, we ask them to pray to Christ for our faith and salvation.

About thirty years later, a man named Stephen, a deacon in the Church who was “full of faith and the Holy Spirit” was stoned by Judeans who thought a crucified Messiah was an abhorrent and blasphemous idea (see Acts 6 and 7). Stephen prays for the forgiveness of his murderers as they raise the stones they use to kill him:

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him. ⁵⁵ But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; ⁵⁶ and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him. ⁵⁸ Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:54-60)

Now also being accounted among the righteous, we pray that St. Stephen ever entreats Christ our God to save our souls.

Around seventy years after this, Ignatius, the bishop of the church in Antioch, was arrested by Roman authorities and sentenced to die in the Roman coliseum for the crime of being a Christian. Ignatius wrote several letters to various churches as he was on his way to Rome to be martyred. His letter to the church in Rome contains some particularly moving words:

All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth. For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?

Him I seek, who died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake. The birth pangs are upon me. Pardon me, brothers: do not obstruct me from coming to life, do not desire to keep me in a state of death. Allow me to obtain pure light: when I have gone there, I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God.

We also pray that St. Ignatius asks Christ to grant His mercy to us.

The list could easily go on until the present day. As long as there have been Christians, there have been martyrs. But we in the United States, being entrenched in our comfortable lives and divorced from the reality of persecution, often fail to recognize this. We do not want to suffer for Christ, and we certainly do not want to die for Him. Yet the call of the Christian life is marked by a call to suffer alongside the God Who suffered for us. Jesus makes this quite clear and explicit to the crowds who follow Him:

²⁵ Now great multitudes accompanied him; and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-27)

St. Paul the Apostle, who was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and finally killed for the name of Christ also makes the call to suffer alongside Jesus clear in his second letter to the Corinthians, stating that there is also comfort and joy found in the suffering:

⁵ For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. ⁷ Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort. (2 Corinthians 1:5-7)

I think the reason I am moved by listening to and reading the accounts of the martyrs is because I realize that my own faith is too small. If I am painfully honest with myself, I do not want to suffer. I do not want to die. And yet, despite all this, I find myself attracted to the example of the Coptic Christians who risk their lives every day to go to church in order to pray with their brothers and sisters in Christ and celebrate the Eucharist. I ask that their martyrs to pray for me, so that my faith may be strengthened when times of affliction come, as they always do. And perhaps we all should be asking their prayers and preparing ourselves to suffer for Christ in whatever way we are called to. Some of us will die. Others of us will be beaten. Others of us still will be mocked and socially ostracized. But all will suffer, and we are called to endure this suffering patiently, with joy and love at being accounted worthy to suffer for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This is the way of the cross. This is the way of love. This is the way of Christ.

Pray for those who are suffering for Christ in Egypt. And ask them, whether living or asleep, to pray for us.