Friday April 24, 2015

From The Record, Photo by Peter Lee, Record Staff

Psalm 69:31-36

Let the oppressed see it and be glad;  you who seek God, let your hearts revive.

For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own that are in bonds.

This week, our local newspaper in Waterloo Region featured a story entitled , "Local Armenians mark centenary of their darkest moment."  Today, in the Anglican Church of Canada calendar, we remember Armenian Christians killed by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and other Martyrs of the 20th century.  For All the Saints:  Prayers and Readings for Saints' Days, helps us to honour these martyrs:

Martyrs are Christians who have been put to death because they chose to remain faithful to the gospel and counted “the truth as it is in Jesus” dearer than life itself. In the twentieth century more Christians suffered for this reason than at any other time in the Church’s history — there are the three million Armenian Christians who died under Turkish brutality during the first World War; the million Orthodox who perished in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s and 30’s; the unknown number of Albanians who disappeared in their government’s efforts to suppress Christianity; the hundreds of Germans, both Protestants and Catholics, who died because they resisted Hitler and his Nazi regime; the Burmese Christians who were killed simply because they believed in Christ; the hundreds of African Christians who suffered because they condemned the terrorism of colonial authorities and black nationalists alike; and the many who were killed because their Christian witness made them oppose racism or social and economic injustices.

For All the Saints goes on to say, "today's memorial is meant to be a small act of resistance, a refusal to be silent in the face of terror and injustice".  As we are all too aware, Christians, and people of other faiths, continue to suffer and die for their beliefs. What small act of resistance will make today?