Enduring the Pressure of Persecution
Jesus and Jiu-Jitsu // Devotional #69
Few things are as anxiety-inducing as the first time your training partner presses all their weight onto your rib cage. Despite struggling with all your might, you’re left with few options because they have the leverage and you lack the knowledge. As panic sets in, maybe you think, like many of us, “This is it. I’m going to die. Tell my family I love them.”
Eventually, your partner has mercy, or the round ends, and breath returns to your lungs. You realize you’re not dead yet, even if you haven’t come to grips with the fact that you’ve got three rounds left.
At the time, you likely couldn’t imagine a world where enduring that level of pressure would be part of your weekly routine. But as the weeks stack up and your training continues, the pressure becomes easier to handle. Now, instead of going into full fight-or-flight whenever suffocating pressure comes, your training takes over. You take stock of your position, look for opportunities to frame, create space, turn your head, and patiently endure pressure until the right moment comes to make your move.
Yet the pressure we endure on the mat isn’t entirely different from the pressure we face when persecution comes. The problem is that, just as many of us had little experience with enduring pressure before training, many of us haven’t experienced enough persecution to know how to respond when it comes.
For most of us, our worlds have become echo chambers of our own design, and we’ve largely filtered out voices that might otherwise challenge our faith and worldview. We’ve surrounded ourselves with those who, for the most part, look like us, agree with us, and provide a level of intellectual congruency that prevents us from ever having to endure the pressure of those who might not only disagree with our faith but also be actively hostile to it.
Because we’ve isolated ourselves from dissenting voices, even the slightest pressure can feel threatening not only to our witness but also to our faith itself. Maybe it’s an internet troll who comments on your post about going to church. Maybe it’s someone in real life who asks why you would willingly follow Jesus. Or maybe it’s a family member or a close friend who’s unexpectedly turned away from the Lord and now sees it as their mission to get you to do the same. If we’re not equipped to handle these moments, the same fight-or-flight response that kicked in the first time we felt the crushing weight of our training partner can kick in here, causing us to thrash about irrationally as we desperately search for an answer to their challenge.
Yet as we throw out any number of emotionally charged responses in the hope that something might alleviate the perceived threat, we’re often unaware of the harm we’re causing to others, or even to ourselves. By labeling any pushback or challenge as persecution, we feel we’ve got the right, and even an obligation, to ruthlessly defend our faith against anyone who might dare threaten our carefully constructed worldview. They attack, so we attack. And as we attack, our immaturity reveals how unsteady and insecure we are in our faith.
Because so many of us haven’t truly experienced the pressure of persecution, we respond to persecution (and perceived persecution) on impulse, guided by what we intuit is justified. Like Peter in Gethsemane, drawing his sword, we attempt to defend a lion who needs no protection, failing to see that the weapons of our warfare are not of this world.
Listen to how Jesus tells us we’re to respond to persecution in Luke 6:27-29:
27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. (ESV)
The standard practice of man has been, and continues to be, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If we are attacked, our flesh thirsts for retaliatory justice. With every fiber of our being, our innate sense of justice fuels our conviction that it is our duty and our right to pay back evil with evil.
Yet, as in so many other instances, Jesus looks at our natural, fallen response and offers a path that leads to life, not death. Rather than blood for blood, Jesus commands us to love our enemies, and He isn’t cryptic about what this means. Jesus tells us to do what is in their best interests, speak blessing over them, and even lift them up before the Father in prayer.
Although everything in us might want to exact vengeance, Jesus gives a command that takes retaliation off the table and replaces it with radical mercy, which, to an unbelieving world, seems as foolish as dying on a Roman cross for another’s sins. What fool would voluntarily offer his other cheek when struck, or allow himself to be stripped and his clothes divided? Who wouldn’t defend themselves when slandered, or call down a legion to fight for them when all it would take is a word?
And yet, on the cross, Jesus did exactly this. For when He was persecuted, He did not persecute in return, and when He was struck, He did not strike in return. As Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:21-25:
21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (ESV)
As Peter wrote this, I wonder whether he thought back to that night in the garden when the High Priest came to take Jesus away. I wonder if he’s filled with the regret common to all who look back on the mistakes of their youth. And yet, beyond mere embarrassment, I wonder whether the greater memory was Jesus’ willingness to be led away to endure an unjust death, so that the unjust might be justified in Him.
Here’s a reality we can’t escape: our sin put Jesus on the cross. The persecution Jesus endured was a direct result of our sin, yet Jesus still suffered for us. If we’ve received mercy from one who endured such hostility from sinners, and if we were loved even while we were enemies of God, how can we withhold both love and mercy from those who come against us?
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
Luke 6:35-36 (ESV)
Take time to consider these questions:
When you feel the pressure of persecution, how do you typically respond?
How does Jesus’ example and command to love our enemies contrast with our impulse to attack those who attack us?
How might God use how we endure persecution to ultimately point our attackers to the truth of the Gospel?
As you end your time, dwell for a moment on Jesus’ example of loving His enemies, even as He suffered and endured the cross. Confess how you’ve sought to retaliate against those who’ve attacked or persecuted you for the sake of the Gospel. Ask the Lord to grant you a heart that loves your enemies as He has loved you.
