Witnesses
Commentary
Note: This installment was originally published for April 22, 2012.
During the time of the Reformation, John Foxe of England was impressed by the testimony of the early Christians. He gleaned the pages of early historical writings, and wrote a book that has become a classic in the church: Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
One story he tells is about an early church leader named Lawrence. Lawrence acted as a pastor for a church community. He also collected the offerings for the poor each week and that led to his death.
A band of thieves found out that Lawrence received the offerings of the people from Sunday to Sunday, so one night, as he was out taking a stroll, they grabbed him and demanded the money. He told them that he didn't have it, that he had already given it all to the poor. They didn't believe him and told him they would give him a chance to find it. In three days they would come to his house and take from him the treasures of the church.
Three days later they did come. But Lawrence wasn't alone. The house was filled with the people of his congregation. When the thieves demanded the treasures of the church, Lawrence smiled. He opened wide his arms and gestured to those who sat around him. "Here's the treasure of the church!" he said. "Here's the treasure of God that shines in the world!"
That is the central message to all our lectionary readings today. Peter is himself a witness of Jesus in first-century Jerusalem and through his witness others themselves become witnesses. John reminds us that loved children imitate their parents and that we who have become children of the heavenly Father witness of him to all we meet. Jesus, in his final words to his disciples, forthrightly commissions them as witnesses. Without their testimony, you and I and the congregations we serve would not be here today!
Acts 3:12-19
When Canadian missionaries Don and Carol Richardson entered the world of the Sawi people in Irian Jaya in 1962, they were aware that culture shock awaited them. But the full impact of the tensions they faced didn't become apparent until one horrible day.
Don had learned enough of the Sawi language to carry on elementary conversations. He often spent time at the evening communal gathering of men, telling Bible stories.
The Sawi were great tellers of tales. The best among them could weave word pictures for hours, captivating and entrancing everyone within earshot. Don was a novice working under the limitations of a foreign language. Some listened politely as he tried to express himself; most ignored him and carried on other conversations and activities.
But this night was different. At first, the gathering of men was as restless as usual while Don spoke. The story of Jesus' final days with his disciples before the crucifixion didn't seem to grab them. Then Don told the story of Judas and suddenly Don felt a spark of electricity. No one moved. No one made a noise. All were listening.
Startled and pleased, he carried on. The drama heightened. The room shivered with anticipation. And when the details of Judas's awful betrayal danced before them, Don felt a keen sense of involvement in every eye.
Then he began to feel uneasy. What was it about the story that drew the Sawi? Why did this story of treachery draw such enthusiasm? He was about to find out.
When the last words were spoken, one man whistled in delight. Others chuckled in glee, and some touched their fingertips to their chests in awe. To them, Judas was a great man. He was a super-Sawi! He was the hero of the story. He had played the greatest trick a Sawi could ever hope to pull off -- the "fattening of a friend for the slaughter!"
The Sawi were cannibals. Over generations, their tribe found no excitement that could match eating the flesh of one who had been groomed as a friend. It was the ultimate expression of power, control, and vindication. To eat the flesh of a friend was the ultimate trip. And Judas was the hero of the gospel.
Can you imagine it? How could you live in such a society? Think of how Don and Carol Richardson felt. They had been welcomed into the village as guests; now they wondered whether they were to become the next victims of such a value system. Which "friend" in their daily routine would plunge the knife?
Although frightened and disturbed, Don and Carol stayed on among the Sawi. Only a great while later would they be able to make the story of Jesus true gospel for these people. In a time of tense relations with a neighboring tribe, some among the Sawi were wounded and killed. During the afternoon work gatherings, several men began to question whether it wasn't about time for a "Peace Child."
A "Peace Child"? Don was intrigued and asked what they meant. Sometimes, they told him, during times of harsh conflict between tribes, when mutually assured destruction seemed the only path ahead, the chief of one of the warring parties would grab the youngest boy from the breast of its mother and run swiftly across the territory between opposing lines and thrust the newborn child into the hands of a young girl of the enemy. All knew this was a "Peace Child," belonging now to both tribes. Since they were bound together by common blood, peace reigned as long as the child lived.
"What if someone would kill the 'Peace Child'?" asked Don, naively.
The men quivered in the horror of disbelief. No one would dare harm the "Peace Child," they declared, let alone kill him!
"Ah," said Don. "Let me tell you a story…" And he told them of a time when our human tribe was at war with the tribe of heaven, and how the chief of heaven's tribe grabbed his own son and brought him to our tribe as the "Peace Child," and how Judas betrayed the "Peace Child" to his death and that we were all implicated in the crime.
It was that day that the Sawi cried out in repentance, "What can we do?" And they became Christians, just as happened when Peter preached the gospel in today's lectionary passage.
1 John 3:1-7
Children of the heavenly Father,
Safely in his bosom gather.
Nestling bird nor star in heaven,
Such a refuge ere was given.
This great hymn text was written by Carolina Vilhelmina Sandell Berg (1832-1903). The daughter of a Swedish Lutheran minister, she was stricken with a paralysis as a young child that confined her to bed with little chance for recovery. Yet by age twelve she had improved so that she was able to walk. From this experience, young Carolina began writing verses to express her gratitude to God and at age sixteen she published her first book of poems. "Children of the Heavenly Father" is one of her most famous hymn texts and is believed by some to have come from her teenage years, perhaps around 1848, as a testimony to the spiritual upbringing that she received in her home.
A great parental home is, indeed, a wonderful gift. In one of the Peanuts cartoons, Charlie Brown sits in his father's barber shop and describes his relationship with his dad: "My dad likes me to come down to the barber shop and wait for him. No matter how busy he is, even if the shop is full of customers, he always stops and says 'hi' to me. I sit here on the bench until six o'clock, when he's through, and then we ride home together."
He thinks for a minute and then he goes on: "Boy! It really doesn't take much to make my dad happy!"
It's nice to know a father that well. But for many of us, fathers are a lot more mysterious. Some years ago, researchers at Cornell University studied family behavior across North America. They came to the conclusion that the average father spends only 37.7 seconds with each child each day. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, it seems, all we know about our fathers comes from observing them from a distance. The late playwright Channing Pollack knew that. He used to tell a devastating little story about something that happened when he was a young boy. His parents took him along to a party one night at a magnificent house on a large estate. There was a little girl there about his age, and they played together till they ran out of ideas.
Then young Channing said to her, "Let's hide behind this curtain and maybe no one will know we're here!"
Her answer shocked him. He never forgot it. She said, "Maybe no one will care."
Can you imagine it? A young child says about her own parents: "Maybe no one will care." How horrible to grow up in a world like that.
That's why John's praise and prayer in today's lectionary passage is so powerful in the life of the believer. Our lives have meaning because we are loved. We are loved by a Father. We can sing and dance and play because he cares about us. Jesus even said we could call him "Abba." If you ever go to Israel and see the children darting through the markets, you'll hear them tugging at their fathers' trousers and calling "Abba! Abba!" It's the equivalent of "daddy" to them.
Daddies can fix anything. Daddies are always there for us. Nothing means more to daddies than our cares and concerns. Of course, that doesn't mean daddies give their children anything they ask for. That wouldn't help them grow in life. But what a child needs, what really matters most to a young person, that a good parent will always supply: a sense of worth, the confidence of belonging, a knowledge that someone cares.
Ian Maclaren tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She's raised in a Christian home but leaves it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she's ever desired.
But it's never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally she doesn't even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven't forgotten her, even though it's been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name even though he can't see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn't have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head. Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, "It's a pity, Margaret, that you don't know Gaelic. That's the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for 'darling,' and my father called me every one of them that night I came home."
She knew, indeed, what it meant to be a child of a loving father. So do we, no matter what homes we emerge from. Because, above all else, we are, as John testified, "Children of the heavenly Father!"
Luke 24:36b-48
There is an ancient legend first told by Christians living in the catacombs under the streets of Rome that pictures the day when Jesus went back to glory after finishing all his work on earth. The angel Gabriel meets Jesus in heaven and welcomes him home. "Lord," he says, "who have you left behind to carry on your work?"
Jesus tells him about the disciples, the little band of fishermen, and farmers and housewives.
"But Lord," says Gabriel, "what if they fail you? What if they lose heart, or drop out? What if things get too rough for them, and they let you down?"
"Well," says Jesus, "then all I've done will come to nothing!"
"But don't you have a backup plan?" Gabriel asks. "Isn't there something else to keep it going, to finish your work?"
"No," says Jesus, "there's no backup plan. The church is it. There's nothing else."
"Nothing else?" says Gabriel. "But what if they fail?"
And the early Christians knew Jesus' answer. "They won't fail, Gabriel," he said. "They won't fail!"
Isn't that a marvelous thing? Here are the Christians of Rome, dug into the earth like gophers, tunneling out of sight because of the terrors of Nero up above. They're nothing in that world! They're poor and despised and insignificant! Yet they know the promise of Jesus: "You won't fail! You're my people, and you won't fail!"
Tony Campolo tells about a friend who was walking through the midway at a county fair when he met a tiny girl. She was carrying a great big fluff of cotton candy on a stick, almost as larger as herself! He said to her, "How can a little girl like you eat all that cotton candy?"
"Well," she said to him, "I'm really much bigger on the inside than I am on the outside!"
That's essentially what Jesus is saying here. "You are witnesses of these things." On the outside you may seem to be nothing but on the inside you're as big as the kingdom and the power and the glory of your God! You can and will make a difference!
Application
One of the greatest stories of witness and testimony comes from late eighteenth century England. William Carey was a pastor of a small congregation in Leiceter. In 1792 he preached a powerful sermon called "Expect Great Things from God; Attempt Great Things for God!" People would remember it for years. His message not only moved hearts in his congregation, however, it also came home to challenge Pastor Carey's own soul. The next year he set sail for India, and what he did in that country was simply astounding. He began a manufacturing plant to employ jobless workers. He translated the scriptures and set up shops to print them. He established schools for all ages, helping people find a better place in society. He provided medical assistance for the diseased and the troubled and the ailing. He was nothing short of a miracle for the people of India.
Why did he do it? Because Jesus told his disciples and all who would believe through them: "You are my witnesses!" When Cary lay dying, these were his last words: "When I have gone, speak not of Carey but of Carey's Savior."
Witnesses indeed!
An Alternative Application
Luke 24:36b-48. There's a marvelously terrible and yet hopefully powerful little story tucked away in the pages of Edward Gibbon's seven-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It tells about a humble little monk named Telemachus living out in the farming regions of Asia.
Telemachus had no great ambitions in life. He loved his little garden and tilled it through the changing seasons. One day in the year 391 he felt a sense of urgency, a call of God's direction in his life. Although he didn't know why, he felt that God wanted him to go to Rome, the heart and soul of the empire. In fact, the feelings of such a call frightened him, but he went anyway, praying along the way for God's direction.
When he finally got to the city it was in an uproar. The armies of Rome had just come home from the battlefield in victory, and the crowds were turning out for a great celebration. They flowed through the streets like a tidal wave, and Telemachus was caught in their frenzy and carried into the Coliseum.
He had never seen a gladiator contest before, but now his heart sickened. Down in the arena men hacked at each other with swords and clubs. The crowds roared at the sight of blood and urged their favorites on to the death.
Telemachus couldn't stand it. He knew it was wrong; this wasn't the way God wanted people to live or to die. So little Telemachus worked his way through the crowds to the wall down by the arena. "In the name of Christ, forbear!" he shouted.
Nobody heard him, so he crawled up onto the wall and shouted again: "In the name of Christ, forbear!" This time the few who heard him only laughed. But Telemachus was not to be ignored. He jumped into the arena and ran through the sands toward the gladiators. "In the name of Christ, forbear!"
The crowds laughed at the silly little man and threw stones at him. Telemachus, however, was on a mission. He threw himself between two gladiators to stop their fighting. "In the name of Christ, forbear!" he cried.
They hacked him apart. They cut his body from shoulder to stomach, and he fell onto the sand with the blood running out of his life.
The gladiators were stunned and stopped to watch him die. Then the crowds fell back in silence, and, for a moment, no one in the coliseum moved. Telemachus' final words rang in their memories: "In the name of Christ, forbear!" At last they moved, slowly at first, but growing in numbers. The masses of Rome filed out of the Coliseum that day, and the historian Theodoret reports that never again was a gladiator contest held there! All because of the witness and the testimony of a single Christian!
During the time of the Reformation, John Foxe of England was impressed by the testimony of the early Christians. He gleaned the pages of early historical writings, and wrote a book that has become a classic in the church: Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
One story he tells is about an early church leader named Lawrence. Lawrence acted as a pastor for a church community. He also collected the offerings for the poor each week and that led to his death.
A band of thieves found out that Lawrence received the offerings of the people from Sunday to Sunday, so one night, as he was out taking a stroll, they grabbed him and demanded the money. He told them that he didn't have it, that he had already given it all to the poor. They didn't believe him and told him they would give him a chance to find it. In three days they would come to his house and take from him the treasures of the church.
Three days later they did come. But Lawrence wasn't alone. The house was filled with the people of his congregation. When the thieves demanded the treasures of the church, Lawrence smiled. He opened wide his arms and gestured to those who sat around him. "Here's the treasure of the church!" he said. "Here's the treasure of God that shines in the world!"
That is the central message to all our lectionary readings today. Peter is himself a witness of Jesus in first-century Jerusalem and through his witness others themselves become witnesses. John reminds us that loved children imitate their parents and that we who have become children of the heavenly Father witness of him to all we meet. Jesus, in his final words to his disciples, forthrightly commissions them as witnesses. Without their testimony, you and I and the congregations we serve would not be here today!
Acts 3:12-19
When Canadian missionaries Don and Carol Richardson entered the world of the Sawi people in Irian Jaya in 1962, they were aware that culture shock awaited them. But the full impact of the tensions they faced didn't become apparent until one horrible day.
Don had learned enough of the Sawi language to carry on elementary conversations. He often spent time at the evening communal gathering of men, telling Bible stories.
The Sawi were great tellers of tales. The best among them could weave word pictures for hours, captivating and entrancing everyone within earshot. Don was a novice working under the limitations of a foreign language. Some listened politely as he tried to express himself; most ignored him and carried on other conversations and activities.
But this night was different. At first, the gathering of men was as restless as usual while Don spoke. The story of Jesus' final days with his disciples before the crucifixion didn't seem to grab them. Then Don told the story of Judas and suddenly Don felt a spark of electricity. No one moved. No one made a noise. All were listening.
Startled and pleased, he carried on. The drama heightened. The room shivered with anticipation. And when the details of Judas's awful betrayal danced before them, Don felt a keen sense of involvement in every eye.
Then he began to feel uneasy. What was it about the story that drew the Sawi? Why did this story of treachery draw such enthusiasm? He was about to find out.
When the last words were spoken, one man whistled in delight. Others chuckled in glee, and some touched their fingertips to their chests in awe. To them, Judas was a great man. He was a super-Sawi! He was the hero of the story. He had played the greatest trick a Sawi could ever hope to pull off -- the "fattening of a friend for the slaughter!"
The Sawi were cannibals. Over generations, their tribe found no excitement that could match eating the flesh of one who had been groomed as a friend. It was the ultimate expression of power, control, and vindication. To eat the flesh of a friend was the ultimate trip. And Judas was the hero of the gospel.
Can you imagine it? How could you live in such a society? Think of how Don and Carol Richardson felt. They had been welcomed into the village as guests; now they wondered whether they were to become the next victims of such a value system. Which "friend" in their daily routine would plunge the knife?
Although frightened and disturbed, Don and Carol stayed on among the Sawi. Only a great while later would they be able to make the story of Jesus true gospel for these people. In a time of tense relations with a neighboring tribe, some among the Sawi were wounded and killed. During the afternoon work gatherings, several men began to question whether it wasn't about time for a "Peace Child."
A "Peace Child"? Don was intrigued and asked what they meant. Sometimes, they told him, during times of harsh conflict between tribes, when mutually assured destruction seemed the only path ahead, the chief of one of the warring parties would grab the youngest boy from the breast of its mother and run swiftly across the territory between opposing lines and thrust the newborn child into the hands of a young girl of the enemy. All knew this was a "Peace Child," belonging now to both tribes. Since they were bound together by common blood, peace reigned as long as the child lived.
"What if someone would kill the 'Peace Child'?" asked Don, naively.
The men quivered in the horror of disbelief. No one would dare harm the "Peace Child," they declared, let alone kill him!
"Ah," said Don. "Let me tell you a story…" And he told them of a time when our human tribe was at war with the tribe of heaven, and how the chief of heaven's tribe grabbed his own son and brought him to our tribe as the "Peace Child," and how Judas betrayed the "Peace Child" to his death and that we were all implicated in the crime.
It was that day that the Sawi cried out in repentance, "What can we do?" And they became Christians, just as happened when Peter preached the gospel in today's lectionary passage.
1 John 3:1-7
Children of the heavenly Father,
Safely in his bosom gather.
Nestling bird nor star in heaven,
Such a refuge ere was given.
This great hymn text was written by Carolina Vilhelmina Sandell Berg (1832-1903). The daughter of a Swedish Lutheran minister, she was stricken with a paralysis as a young child that confined her to bed with little chance for recovery. Yet by age twelve she had improved so that she was able to walk. From this experience, young Carolina began writing verses to express her gratitude to God and at age sixteen she published her first book of poems. "Children of the Heavenly Father" is one of her most famous hymn texts and is believed by some to have come from her teenage years, perhaps around 1848, as a testimony to the spiritual upbringing that she received in her home.
A great parental home is, indeed, a wonderful gift. In one of the Peanuts cartoons, Charlie Brown sits in his father's barber shop and describes his relationship with his dad: "My dad likes me to come down to the barber shop and wait for him. No matter how busy he is, even if the shop is full of customers, he always stops and says 'hi' to me. I sit here on the bench until six o'clock, when he's through, and then we ride home together."
He thinks for a minute and then he goes on: "Boy! It really doesn't take much to make my dad happy!"
It's nice to know a father that well. But for many of us, fathers are a lot more mysterious. Some years ago, researchers at Cornell University studied family behavior across North America. They came to the conclusion that the average father spends only 37.7 seconds with each child each day. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, it seems, all we know about our fathers comes from observing them from a distance. The late playwright Channing Pollack knew that. He used to tell a devastating little story about something that happened when he was a young boy. His parents took him along to a party one night at a magnificent house on a large estate. There was a little girl there about his age, and they played together till they ran out of ideas.
Then young Channing said to her, "Let's hide behind this curtain and maybe no one will know we're here!"
Her answer shocked him. He never forgot it. She said, "Maybe no one will care."
Can you imagine it? A young child says about her own parents: "Maybe no one will care." How horrible to grow up in a world like that.
That's why John's praise and prayer in today's lectionary passage is so powerful in the life of the believer. Our lives have meaning because we are loved. We are loved by a Father. We can sing and dance and play because he cares about us. Jesus even said we could call him "Abba." If you ever go to Israel and see the children darting through the markets, you'll hear them tugging at their fathers' trousers and calling "Abba! Abba!" It's the equivalent of "daddy" to them.
Daddies can fix anything. Daddies are always there for us. Nothing means more to daddies than our cares and concerns. Of course, that doesn't mean daddies give their children anything they ask for. That wouldn't help them grow in life. But what a child needs, what really matters most to a young person, that a good parent will always supply: a sense of worth, the confidence of belonging, a knowledge that someone cares.
Ian Maclaren tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She's raised in a Christian home but leaves it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she's ever desired.
But it's never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally she doesn't even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven't forgotten her, even though it's been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name even though he can't see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn't have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head. Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, "It's a pity, Margaret, that you don't know Gaelic. That's the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for 'darling,' and my father called me every one of them that night I came home."
She knew, indeed, what it meant to be a child of a loving father. So do we, no matter what homes we emerge from. Because, above all else, we are, as John testified, "Children of the heavenly Father!"
Luke 24:36b-48
There is an ancient legend first told by Christians living in the catacombs under the streets of Rome that pictures the day when Jesus went back to glory after finishing all his work on earth. The angel Gabriel meets Jesus in heaven and welcomes him home. "Lord," he says, "who have you left behind to carry on your work?"
Jesus tells him about the disciples, the little band of fishermen, and farmers and housewives.
"But Lord," says Gabriel, "what if they fail you? What if they lose heart, or drop out? What if things get too rough for them, and they let you down?"
"Well," says Jesus, "then all I've done will come to nothing!"
"But don't you have a backup plan?" Gabriel asks. "Isn't there something else to keep it going, to finish your work?"
"No," says Jesus, "there's no backup plan. The church is it. There's nothing else."
"Nothing else?" says Gabriel. "But what if they fail?"
And the early Christians knew Jesus' answer. "They won't fail, Gabriel," he said. "They won't fail!"
Isn't that a marvelous thing? Here are the Christians of Rome, dug into the earth like gophers, tunneling out of sight because of the terrors of Nero up above. They're nothing in that world! They're poor and despised and insignificant! Yet they know the promise of Jesus: "You won't fail! You're my people, and you won't fail!"
Tony Campolo tells about a friend who was walking through the midway at a county fair when he met a tiny girl. She was carrying a great big fluff of cotton candy on a stick, almost as larger as herself! He said to her, "How can a little girl like you eat all that cotton candy?"
"Well," she said to him, "I'm really much bigger on the inside than I am on the outside!"
That's essentially what Jesus is saying here. "You are witnesses of these things." On the outside you may seem to be nothing but on the inside you're as big as the kingdom and the power and the glory of your God! You can and will make a difference!
Application
One of the greatest stories of witness and testimony comes from late eighteenth century England. William Carey was a pastor of a small congregation in Leiceter. In 1792 he preached a powerful sermon called "Expect Great Things from God; Attempt Great Things for God!" People would remember it for years. His message not only moved hearts in his congregation, however, it also came home to challenge Pastor Carey's own soul. The next year he set sail for India, and what he did in that country was simply astounding. He began a manufacturing plant to employ jobless workers. He translated the scriptures and set up shops to print them. He established schools for all ages, helping people find a better place in society. He provided medical assistance for the diseased and the troubled and the ailing. He was nothing short of a miracle for the people of India.
Why did he do it? Because Jesus told his disciples and all who would believe through them: "You are my witnesses!" When Cary lay dying, these were his last words: "When I have gone, speak not of Carey but of Carey's Savior."
Witnesses indeed!
An Alternative Application
Luke 24:36b-48. There's a marvelously terrible and yet hopefully powerful little story tucked away in the pages of Edward Gibbon's seven-volume work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It tells about a humble little monk named Telemachus living out in the farming regions of Asia.
Telemachus had no great ambitions in life. He loved his little garden and tilled it through the changing seasons. One day in the year 391 he felt a sense of urgency, a call of God's direction in his life. Although he didn't know why, he felt that God wanted him to go to Rome, the heart and soul of the empire. In fact, the feelings of such a call frightened him, but he went anyway, praying along the way for God's direction.
When he finally got to the city it was in an uproar. The armies of Rome had just come home from the battlefield in victory, and the crowds were turning out for a great celebration. They flowed through the streets like a tidal wave, and Telemachus was caught in their frenzy and carried into the Coliseum.
He had never seen a gladiator contest before, but now his heart sickened. Down in the arena men hacked at each other with swords and clubs. The crowds roared at the sight of blood and urged their favorites on to the death.
Telemachus couldn't stand it. He knew it was wrong; this wasn't the way God wanted people to live or to die. So little Telemachus worked his way through the crowds to the wall down by the arena. "In the name of Christ, forbear!" he shouted.
Nobody heard him, so he crawled up onto the wall and shouted again: "In the name of Christ, forbear!" This time the few who heard him only laughed. But Telemachus was not to be ignored. He jumped into the arena and ran through the sands toward the gladiators. "In the name of Christ, forbear!"
The crowds laughed at the silly little man and threw stones at him. Telemachus, however, was on a mission. He threw himself between two gladiators to stop their fighting. "In the name of Christ, forbear!" he cried.
They hacked him apart. They cut his body from shoulder to stomach, and he fell onto the sand with the blood running out of his life.
The gladiators were stunned and stopped to watch him die. Then the crowds fell back in silence, and, for a moment, no one in the coliseum moved. Telemachus' final words rang in their memories: "In the name of Christ, forbear!" At last they moved, slowly at first, but growing in numbers. The masses of Rome filed out of the Coliseum that day, and the historian Theodoret reports that never again was a gladiator contest held there! All because of the witness and the testimony of a single Christian!
