To the Church of Symrna and Philadelphia. . .

This essay is based on a sermon preached at Seeds of Hope Anglican Church preached on Febuary 28 and March 1st.

What do we make of suffering?  How do we understanding life’s tribulations and pains?  What meaning do we give to them? Each one of us can turn these into very real and raw questions. In my own life I have, and continue to ask, “Why was I born with a physical handicap?” I have suffered with 8 surgeries, the indignity and shame of having to ask people for help with the simplest things of life, for example, tying a neck tie.  It is hard to explain how awkward I feel shaking hands with people, that instant trigger of exclusion. The voice inside my head, “You can’t do even the simplest things like everyone else can.”  The irony of my handicap is that it is just barely there, so I also have to suffer with the complexity of people thinking I am physically normal when I most certainly am not. 

This type of wrestling and asking the questions that arise out of circumstance like mine are what the theologians call the problem of evil.  Christianity, unlike the other major world religions or philosophies, has a particular and uniquely difficult time with this set of questions. Christians hold what many feel are two opposing views. First, God is good and loving.  Second, evil exists and God is not responsible for it.  A Buddhist does not have this problem, evil is an illusion to be risen above. An honest atheist, and that is key finding an honest one, assigns no significant meaning to any event, whether it be a tragic or comic.  Still the typical atheist will get angry at God. Stephen Fry,  noted atheist and actor was asked by a BBC journalist just a month ago, “What would you say to God if he did actually exist?” Fry’s response, “How dare you God make us suffer? How dare you create a world with such evil in it.”  You can take a look at his interview here.

The Christian, however, cannot take the road of illusion, or anger at a non-existent being, or the honest atheist’s denial of all meaning.  Christians have to find a way to hold these two truths together in tension with one another.  This is not merely an academic exercise.  As with my own questions these are not the formulation of abstract arguments. I live in my broken body.  I suffer with all the complexities of being a disabled man who appears normal and healthy.  Each of us, in our individual stories, suffer from the wounds and arrows of real people who have names and faces and who stir tremendous emotions within us. With these questions in mind, we are going to take a look at two churches in the book of Revelation in which nothing negative is said directly to them. But who are in the midst of suffering for their testimony and enduring pain for the sake of the gospel.  What answer does Christ give them to their suffer, and by extension what do they tell us?

Let us first examine the context in which these two churches find themselves.  I picture the context of these churches as three concentric circles. The broadest context being the Roman culture or what I have termed The blunt hammer.  The subcultural context of religion, again what I have termed as the sharpened scalpel. And the everyday context within the church, the nitty gritty.

The Blunt Hammer is the wide angle lens of their condition. Both Smyrna and Philadelphia are prosperous in part because they tow the Roman line.  Philadelphia was particularly noted for its loyalty to Rome and to Roman worship.  Smyrna was a large port city on the coast of Asia Minor.  One could not do business in the city without first paying homage to Rome.  The Churches in these cities were in most definitely unfriendly territory.  A reader can get a sense of just how unfriendly when we realize who the Church in Symrna is being compared with. When Christ announces ten days of persecution a number of scholars believe it references the testing of Daniel for ten days. In this context, Daniel and his friends are in the midst of the wickedness of Babylon, the city which becomes the symbol for all that stand opposed to God, the anti-city of God’s New Jerusalem.  The Churches in Symrna and Philadelphia find themselves surrounded by the larger culture whose values run contrary to their own values. There has been a sporadic sprinkling of prescription and discrimination and it has left the churches on edge. Christ even says directly to the Church in Symrna, “Do not be afraid.”[1]   The situation evokes in me was is currently going on in our culture concerning gay marriage.  Just last September a bakery own by a Christian couple in Oregon refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.  They have since been forced out of business and fined by the State.[2]   Regardless whether or not you believe this couple made the right choice, this incident and others like it are stirring a sense of fear that it will in the coming years grow increasingly difficult to live out our Biblical witness in peace and tranquility.

Add to this overarching sense of foreboding, the sharpened scalpel.   A minority culture within the the larger culture has it out for the church.  In both letters this group of people are referred to as the Synagogue of Satan.  This group, who aught to be sympathetic to the Church, Jews of the local community, are very much hostile to it. This minority community is going out of their way to destroy these even smaller Christian communities.  The Synagogue of Satan were motivated for a number of reason to persecute the Church. First, it was in part out of jealousy.  These Christians would have likely “stolen” many of the gentile God-fearers; individuals like the Ethiopian Eunuch or Cornelius in the book of Acts, gentiles in search of the one true God.  Second, the Jews in the city would be persecuting the church out of a zealousness. From their perspective Christians were perverting orthodoxy.  Finally, it may have been out of simple survival instinct.  The jews in the city being a minority themselves could turn to the Roman authority and say, “look at these guys. Turn your gaze from us to them.”

Then there is the immediate circle of the Church’s day to day life. The grist and grime of living in a broken world and where the circumstances stack against you.  Smyrna is described as impoverished.  The same group of people are facing the fact that many of its leaders are very soon going to be imprisoned and even may soon be put to death. Likewise, Philadelphia is described as a faithful church who has “kept my word and have not denied my name” but the Church lacks strength.  That is to say there witness to the larger world and their impact on culture was small.     The answer for these Churches, is the same answer we are given for our own lives and our own sufferings— Christ.  In every letter including the letters to Smyrna and  Philadelphia  Christ reminds them of who he is first before going on to describing their situations to them.  Christ meets us wherever we are.  Christ and his presence may not be the answer we want to hear.  However, it is the only answer we can possible have or in the end have need of.  Christ, the Alpha and Omega is the only being who can and has meet us in the troubles of our world.  He has taken the reigns of this world out of the hand of Satan and into his own. 

 To the Church of Smyrna Christ describes himself as the  “First and the Last.”  The Second century Church Father, Tertullian, says this of the phrase, “just as Alpha rolls on till it reaches Omega, and again Omega rolls back till it reaches Alpha, in the same way He [Jesus] might show that in Himself is both the downward course of the beginning on to the end, and the backward course of the end up to the beginning.” In other words Jesus is both the first word in the story and he is the last word on the page.  The story is not our story but his story and what ever takes place in this story is first and foremost about him.  We are not the leading lady or man in the movie of our life, Christ is. It is difficult to do but we must re-contextualize the story of our suffering. This is not to say that he is a unsympathetic protagonist.  Jesus goes on to describe himself as the one “who died and came to life again.”  Death is the first and greatest evil, Adam and Eve died the day they bit of the fruit. Benjamin Warfield described death as “sin’s offspring, Christ’s enemy, Satan’s servant”.[3] And what is more remarkable then Christ coming back from the dead is the fact that he would go to his death to show himself in control and in love with his creation. Os Guiness stated, “Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil.” 

    Christ tells the Church in Philadelphia, “Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.” The most difficult part of being a Christian is living in faithful expectation. The constant reminder to rehearse in our hearts, “Now and Not yet.”  And so it is that Christ lay out the goal and reward for a faithful life- The Crown of life.  The crown was an ancient symbol for victory, salvation and blessing. When generals paraded through Rome in a military triumph they were given a crown to wear to symbolize the victory they had one.  Christ is declaring in a very loud voice that those who suffer will find in the end something greater then that suffering—life eternal, victorious and blessed.

    But that of course is the future, what of the present? As I read these two letters one thing struck me more then any of the hardships or descriptions of Christ or the questions concerning eternity.  Christ tells the church in Philadelphia, “I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, . . . . I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.” Christ does not go to those who accuse his church and proves them wrong, he doesn’t come and make the scales of injustice come into balance. He does not seek or get revenge for the wrong.  He makes those who mock and slander see that the church is loved.  This is not saying, some one else in the church, or another part of the church, Christ loves all of the Church, you and me.  I admit it is difficult to believe this reality. I know because it is difficult for me to see it in my own life concerning my handicap and a whole host of other issues where I feel I am suffering, wrestling or under persecution.  I suggested earlier we aught to find a way to re-contextualize our stories, frame the pain and suffering in a different way. I realize how difficult that is. It has honestly taken a better part of 20 years to feel my handicap is a suffering I can not only live with, but a suffering that has positively impacted the very core of who I am.  Some of this has been, as they said in the movie Avengers, cognitive recalibration.

Some of it has been time and circumstances.  I will give you two examples. One, My wife  and I would not have formed as close of a friendship as quickly as we did 16 years ago if not for Cerebral Palsy. One of her college roommates had Cerebral Palsy, and as a result of my Cerebral Palsy I was motivate to help her roommate and her succeed at our school. Second, it was not until I meet my wife and was several years into our marriage that I realized how much my CP allows me to walk in a minorities shoes without me being a in many ways a minority myself.  In racial reconciliation ministry, they call a person like this a code switcher, someone who can speak to both groups in both groups cultural framework. I just happened to be born a natural code switcher. I have been given this advantage and experience in and through my suffering.  Don’t get me wrong I rather not have the handicap in the first place, but I at least am comfortable in trusting God in this particular circumstance.  There are of course new circumstances that I am currently wrestling to re-contextualize and it is a brutal fight. I am sure you have your own circumstances that you are comfortable with and those in which you are not.  However, the message to these two Churches and by extension to us as well is Christ’s loving faithfulness toward them and us in our tribulations.