The Way Of The Cross With The Coptic Martyrs – Beginning Lent 2015

Am I the only person out there wondering why they kneel? I’ve seen the still shots from the ISIS beheadings of westerners and Christians, and the first thing I always ask is why they’re so calm. Why don’t they fight? What has happened to them before that moment that they meekly kneel in front of a man they know intends to steal their life?

It’s a mental place that I struggle to imagine. In the easy bravery of my imagination, I like to think that I’d make it difficult, that someone intent on my demise would have to wrench the soul out of my body because…why surrender?

As a young girl growing up in Texas, I cut my teeth on tales of bravery and bravado. A shiver runs down my back when I stand within the hallowed walls of the Alamo. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie and all the rest, dying like men. Fighting with rifles and pistols, then knives and bayonets, and finally hands and teeth. Proud and unwilling to give a single inch as they spit in the faces of those bringers of death. It is a very American way of thinking. We grow up loving action heroes and underdogs. We love the men who refuse to die easy. We like heroes who look like John Wayne and fight like Rambo.

The 21 Egyptian Christians who are the latest ISIS victims didn’t do that. They displayed a kind of bravery our world doesn’t often see. As I looked at the images of 42 men filing onto the beach, 21 victims and those who would slaughter them, the Christians’ gazes were defiant. They walked with their chins lifted and their gazes steely. They went where they were led, but these men were not meek lambs. They were towers of faith and strength.

I don’t know what happened to these men in the days and hours preceding their martyrdom. I don’t know if they were resolute in those hours, or if they spent them in the agony of their own Gardens of Gethsemane. Did they, like Christ, ask for this cup to pass them by or were they calm and prayerful as they prepared to journey Home? We may never have a glimpse into how they spent that time before they walked along the Libyan shore.

What we do know, is that in the end these Men of the Cross followed in their Master’s footsteps. They, like Jesus, were dressed in the garb of criminals in an attempt to humiliate them. They, too, accepted the plan God had for them, calmly walking to their certain, and agonizing, deaths. They heard their sentences pronounced by men who had no authority over them, and in the moments before they submitted to an execution usually reserved for the lawless, they cried out to Heaven in a loud voice “Ya Rabbi Yasou.” That is, “My Lord Jesus.” And then into His hands they commended their spirits.

Throughout the next forty days, as we prepare to celebrate the Passion of Christ, let us keep in mind the example of these good and faithful servants who followed His example all the way to their own Calvary.

Please remember the martyrs:

Milad Makeen Zaky
Abanub Ayad Atiya
Maged Solaiman Shehata
Yusuf Shukry Yunan
Kirollos Shokry Fawzy
Bishoy Astafanus Kamel
Somaily Astafanus Kamel
Malak Ibrahim Sinweet
Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros
Girgis Milad Sinweet
Mina Fayez Aziz
Hany Abdelmesih Salib
Bishoy Adel Khalaf
Samuel Alham Wilson
Worker from Awr village [name unknown at this time?]
Ezat Bishri Naseef
Loqa Nagaty
Gaber Munir Adly
Esam Badir Samir
Malak Farag Abram
Sameh Salah Faruq