So Kobe Bryant is dead. A sports legend. A future hall of famer. The media is obsessed with analyzing every aspect of his death. The world honors his memory.
Meanwhile few if any major news outlets pay attention to Christians dying such as the recently beheaded African pastor or the African college student who was kidnapped and murdered by Muslim terrorists a couple of days ago. Few people noticed these Christians. Save for their fellow Christians and their loved ones.
That's because they're nobodies. Nobodies in the eyes of the world. But God remembers them. God remembers his people. God remembers their pain, tears, sufferings, deaths. Psa 56:8. In the world to come, when the first shall be last and the last shall be first, when eschatological judgment shall reveal all and turn the world right-side up again (cf. the book of Esther and Purim), these Christian nobodies will stand out in God's hall of fame faith. Right alongside those in Hebrews 11. Those of whom the world was not worthy.
Not just the secular media. So many Christians on Facebook were lamenting the death of Bryant. Do they also post notifications regarding persecuted/martyred Christians in India, China, and the Muslim world?
ReplyDeleteIt's always interesting what happens in the days following a famous person's death. I think when a larger-than-life personality dies (especially when the death is untimely) it reminds us of our own mortality. For some reason, it tends to hit harder than when we hear what terrible things are happening to faceless and unknown Christians daily.
ReplyDeleteWhat do read that tracks these deaths (not Kobe's)?
ReplyDeleteSorry for the late reply! I think Voice of the Martyrs might be a good place to start.
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