Day: 19

Pastor Ohji

The sharp blade of a machete cut the ropes that tied Pastor Ojih’s feet together. Rough hands jerked him to his feet from where he had laid bound for hours, singing praises to God with his cheek pressed to the dirt. Pastor Ojih and a number of other Christians had been captured by radical Islamists. Bound and left alone to contemplate their fate under the scorching heat of Nigeria’s sun, they would now be required to make a choice.

“If you want to go for Christ, go to this side.” A crude motion of his captor’s hand directed the pastor’s gaze to a man dressed in white who stood apart from the rest of the captives. “If you want to go for Muhammad, remain where you are.”

 With a song of praise returning to his lips, Pastor Ojih led seven other men away to join the first who stood for Christ. For a moment, he watched with tears in his eyes as the men who remained began to recite the Arabic vows to convert to Islam in order to save their lives.

When the time came for Ojih and the men around him to embrace Islam or die for their faith, the husband and father of four turned to his companions and spoke his last words, “If you survive, tell my family that I died well and living with Christ. And if we all die, we know that we died for the Lord.”

Death Was a Choice

After looking at so many accounts of martyrs over the years, including Ohji’s, I was struck by the fact that in account after account, I saw that the death of the martyr often involved a conscious choice. Martyrs often chose a path they knew would end in their death or refused to turn away from Jesus when warned of their murder.

You Will Be My Witnesses

Most of us think of a martyr as someone who has been killed for their faith. But the word “martyr” is actually derived from the Greek word for witness, mártyras. There’s no better place to trace the word’s evolution from witness to martyr than in the book of Acts, beginning with the resurrected Jesus promising his disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my Martus (witnesses) in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

To be a martyr originally meant one that went out with the message of Jesus. They were called to be witnesses to who He was and what He had done.

When the Holy Spirit was poured out and Peter began to preach to the multitudes, his testimony was this: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that, we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32). This message was the message of the apostles who witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Most of the apostles ultimately lost their lives for carrying this testimony to the corners of the world. They had witnessed Jesus lay down his life, that “through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death…and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

As the first partakers of this life in the spirit, they went everywhere – upsetting the powers of darkness by proclaiming their defeat by the resurrected Messiah.

At Pentecost alone, three thousand people held captive by the fear of death, love of money, and self were snatched from slavery into freedom. A life where they freely sold their possessions to provide for one another in love.

When these three thousand heard the testimony of Peter, they begged to know what they must do to be saved. The apostle’s instructions (“repent and be baptized”) set the stage for how the early church would testify to the power of the resurrection with more than just their words:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Romans 6:3-4

The original witnesses of the resurrection became the earliest church martyrs. They lived lives that testified about the God who raises the dead to life. They lived like death and sin had been conquered at the cross of Christ.

The earliest believers followed the example of Christ by embracing the death of their personal desires and ambitions. They gave sacrificially of wealth and time. They patiently endured scorn and reproach at the hands of family and friends, and suffered imprisonment and persecution. Where the world coveted and hoarded its money for fear of want, the early church gave it all away and lacked nothing.

The world sought the accolades of man, but the church endured humiliation and received an eternal weight of glory.

To Live or Die?

If you are like most people, when you read accounts like Pastor Ohji’s, you are probably asking yourself if you could do what he did: “Could I be a faithful witness (mártyras) to the end, with a sword over my neck?”

I think a more important question is, “Can we LIVE like Pastor Ohji?”