REFLECTIONS ON MARTYRDOM: Brief Lives Lived Beautifully Bold

So many of us have been deeply affected by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. He was murdered because of his stand for Christ and Christian principles in the midst of the “lion’s den” of politics. His life and death have caused me to recall a poem I wrote in 2003 after a sermon I heard which recounted a true story of a little boy’s martyrdom in China.

As I read it again today, I can’t help but make connections with Charlie Kirk’s life, his stand and ultimate martyrdom. Both brothers in the Lord, whose circumstances were vastly different, left their blood-stained fingerprints of Christ upon the world they briefly passed though.

Brief lives lived beautifully bold.

"I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives." John 12:24

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BECAUSE HE STOOD

There was a little boy who, with his fellow students, stood

before a China tyrant and were told to bow and pray.

But this little boy knew it was not to his God they spoke

So, while all the others bowed, this little boy stood.

And with the threat of death coming from the man’s lips

the little boy shouted, “I cannot bow, for I am a child of Jesus Christ!”

With that, the man ordered his guards to shoot him down --

the little boy fell dead on the ground on which he stood.

At that very moment, twenty more students stood

proclaiming Jesus as their King and were threatened just the same.

The guards with their guns shot and killed four more little boys

dead on the ground where they once stood.

But then, even more stood up, and no one backed down --

a silence covered the place.

To the commander’s amazement, soon, even more boys stood up --

the examples he attempted to make of the dead

were instead a testament of faith to the living.

Enraged and bewildered, the tyrant instructed, “Off to prison!”

Immediately, the standing students were taken

from the arena where they all, in faith, once stood.

I am amazed as I ponder how this true story has unfolded.

I am so thankful for these brothers in the Lord who stood, and who died.

I am especially thankful for the first little boy’s example,

which emboldened his friends to stand --

they got to their feet not because the boy died,

But because he stood.

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Nanci Stoeffler, Stoeffler Art Studio