Memorial Day

Psalm 101:6 “My eyes shall be on the heroes of the land!”

“Heroes don’t come back…they don’t return from war…true heroes are not the living, but the dead!...I once was asked, ‘Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?’...No… but I served in a company of heroes…” –Major Dick Winters, Band of Brothers

As Christians, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses…the disciples & apostles, patriarchs & prophets…men & women of faith that have gone before us, preceding us in death to the glory of Heaven. We should remember the “rock from which we were hewn, & the hole…quarry from which you were cut.” Memorial Day is about honoring the fallen heroes that have died in service of our country. This Memorial Day, I remember & honor the 1^st of a multitude of faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, the King of Glory. We carry their baton in this race of persevering faith & eternal purposes.

HOW THE APOSTLES DIED:

All the apostles were insulted, persecuted & called to seal their faith & doctrines with their blood…& nobly did they bear the trial:

Matthew - Suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.

Mark - Died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being cruelly dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.

Luke - was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece, as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.

John - Faced martyrdom when he was put in huge caldron of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos, and was afterward branded. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation while there. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.

Peter -was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross in Rome. According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

James, Just - The leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the Temptation.

James the Great - The son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a life time of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

Bartholomew also known as Nathaniel - Was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed for our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death by a whip.

Andrew - Was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted it in these words: 'I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.' He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.

Thomas - Was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the sub-continent.

Jude - Was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.

Matthias - The apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot was stoned and then beheaded.

Barnabas - One of the group of seventy disciples, wrote the Epistle of Barnabas. He preached throughout Italy and Cyprus. Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica.

Paul - Was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed through out the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.

Perhaps this is a reminder that our sufferings are small compared to the intense persecution & cold cruelty faced by the apostles/disciples in the Bible & through history for the sake of their Faith.

Many unbelieving critics have opined that Jesus never really died…or that the apostles saw a ghost, imagined or fabricated the entire resurrection hoax? W.A. Kirkland convincingly argues against those lies in her book “Who Is This Jesus?”:

“It is a new thing in ghost stories which turns abject terror into flaming courage & cowards into heroes & martyrs. It drove ordinary, shrinking men, like ourselves, to go shouting a message to audiences as derisive as some men are today, a message punished with stripes, crosses & red-jowled beasts, yet persisting, indomitable, on and on, down the echoing centuries, until a pagan world was conquered by a handful of Jewish fishermen, & a great Church raised its pinnacles to Heaven to enshrine that message flung to the wind on Easter Sunday”

It takes more than a ghost (or selfish ambition) to account for Christian history. No ghost (or imagination) could have brought about the mighty transformations wrought in the Apostles lives, Christian history & human society since that dramatic dawn.

JESUS is alive! He was crucified, dead, buried in a borrowed tomb…and on the third day…arose! This glorious revelation produces a heart revolution resulting in personal, family, community and historic reformation. It is all to be set down as the personal, post-mortem achievement of the Son of the Living God!