Could You Be a Martyr?

“Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13: 20-21, NIV)

The Bible is clear about martyrs and the fact that many will suffer for the gospel. Hebrews 11 famously talks about believers that were tortured, stoned, mistreated, and viciously killed for spreading the word of God. We know that this kind of persecution for faith in God continues today, especially in countries that have no freedom to practice Christianity like China or the Middle East.

But a lot of the time, we don’t share stories of those martyrs and the truths they died for. And why? Because in the end, they are stories that could help to strengthen and fortify our own faith. The truth is, we’re deeply blessed. We live in a country where it’s still widely condoned to go to church and practice our faith, but what if that weren’t the case? 

In the 1500s, belief in Christ was widely practiced, but society was most staunchly based in the Catholic Church, and questioning it was akin to blaspheming God Himself. So in the days of the Protestant Reformation– y’know, the movement Martin Luther started by posting his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany– many people died for speaking against the corruption of the Catholic Church.

Among these people was Hellen Stirke, a woman whose name only goes down in history for the story of her death. Hellen was a Scottish Christian that lived a very quiet, provincial life as a wife and mother in the middle ages. During the birth of her last child, the midwives urged her to start praying to the Virgin Mary, a tradition– or more accurately, a superstition– of the time. When Hellen refused, the midwives kept pressing her, saying that it would help her deliver the baby until Hellen said, “If I had lived in the days of the Virgin, God might have looked likewise to my humility and base estate, as He did the Virgin’s, and might have made me the mother of Christ.”

In other words, Hellen pointed out that Mary was just an ordinary woman chosen by God, and if God so willed, He could have chosen anyone else with equal faith and humility. Hellen, based in Biblical theology, knew that praying to Mary would do her no good, nor would it make her baby be born faster or safer. She knew that her prayers belonged to God Himself, who was the only one mighty or sovereign enough to carry her through the delivery of her child.

Her comments must have been shocking though, as the news of Hellen’s refusal to pray to Mary and her subsequent comments demoting Mary from quasi-deity to ordinary vessel of the Lord spread through her village. Eventually the presiding cardinal heard of Hellen’s assertion that all of humanity stands on the same equal standing before God, and in an effort to swiftly nip this idea of Protestant theology in the bud, called for the arrest and death of Hellen, her husband, and four other Protestants in the area on the grounds of heresy. 

As Hellen and her husband faced the gallows and holding their newborn in her arms, Hellen kissed her husband and said to him, “Husband, be glad, for we have lived together many joyful days, and this day, in which we must die, we ought to esteem the most joyful of all, because we shall have joy forever. Therefore I will not bid you good night, for we shall shortly meet in the kingdom of heaven.”

Hellen watched her husband hang, then was led down to a nearby pond, handed her newborn over to a nurse that was appointed the baby’s caretaker, and allowed her hands and feet to be bound, before being placed in a large sack full of stones and thrown into the pond to drown.

Can we imagine? Would any of us bravely face the same in the name of the gospel and God’s truth? Because in all reality, Hellen was correct. The Virgin Mary cannot save. She can’t intervene for us before God. She can’t hear our prayers. She was an ordinary woman that was only made extraordinary because God used her for His glory. And while we might think that Hellen’s refusal to pray to Mary in the throes of giving birth was no big deal, it had implications that should still mean something to us today.

If there ever comes a day where we need to set right incorrect theology or stand for the truth of the Gospel, will we? Will we steward our faith righteously or will we quietly stand back in order to not make waves for ourselves? Will we lean into scripture and set right sacrilegious ideas in our friends and family? Our communities? Our nation? Even unto death? Or will we agree to disagree and maintain our comfortable standing in society?

I cannot imagine being Hellen Stirke in the moment she had to kiss her sweet baby goodbye, handing it over to be raised alone in a dark world. I cannot fathom squeezing my husband’s hand for the last time before watching him hang in front of me. I know I wouldn’t have much composure being bound up and sealed into a bag, knowing that I was about to be tossed into a pond. But I pray that I would do any and all of it if it meant standing by faith and doing what’s right by my Savior. I pray that I would still encourage those around me to seek Jesus and find joy in Him, even if it meant my life on earth would be cut short. I hope that I would face and embrace such an end with my eyes fixed on what comes after: the peace and comfort of my Jesus and a race well run.

Only the God of peace, the Savior of the world, the Great Shepherd, and the Lord of lords could equip any of us to not only live by faith, but to die by it. And it is my prayer for you today that He would do just that. I pray that He would strengthen your faith to realize the depths of His mercy towards you, and in that revelation, that you would be moved to share with others how His mercy saves and is extended to them. I pray that God would root your belief in Him so deeply, that not even the sorrows and horrors of this life could shake it. 

And I pray that whatever work He is doing in you this morning would be pleasing unto Him, a living testimony of His glory, building faith in you and sustaining you until the day you see Him with your glorified eyes in heaven. I pray that our ordinary lives would speak volumes to His extraordinary Godship. No matter how your story on earth closes, I pray that He would give you the joy of His Spirit and the surety of His Word to face it bravely, and until that day, that you would use that same bravery to boldly tell the world His Gospel.