You Will Be Hated By All Because of My Name, Mt. 10: 22

“You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved” (Mt. 10: 22). The first clause in this verse is ominous indeed. The history of the Church is full of evidence that this is so. It is a fact, even today, that openly and confidently living in this world in accord with the name of Jesus Christ can still be very costly. But the second clause in this verse is also true; it has always been worth the cost, even when it cost everything.

Paul reveals in his Letter to the Philippians that Jesus, “…emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found in human appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient (like all of us) to death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2: 6-8). The cost that Jesus paid to redeem us from sin and death was heavy indeed. As disciples, Jesus calls on those who believe in him to humbly and willingly do the same for one another, in his name. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for a friend…” (Jn. 15: 12-15).

The cost of discipleship was first paid by those who believed in Jesus from the earliest days of the Church. We see this in the Acts of the Apostles when Stephen, one of the first seven deacons in the Church, is brought before the people, the elders, and the scribes for preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ. Having false witnesses brought against him, Stephen boldly proclaims to them that what they did to Jesus and what they are doing to those who proclaim Jesus’ name, has precedence: “Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?…You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it” (Acts 7: 52-53). For his bold proclamation of the Gospel, like the prophets before him, he was taken outside the walls of Jerusalem and stoned to death, becoming the first of countless martyrs to pay the cost of suffering and death for proclaiming Jesus’ name.

We are told that those who stoned Stephen laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul, who “consented to his execution.” That same Saul would be engaged in further, draconian efforts to destroy the Church, until, on the road to Damascus, Jesus appeared and spoke to him in a blinding vision, and he came, finally, to ‘see the light’. Saul, now Paul, became one of the greatest of the Apostles, preaching in Jesus’ name and spreading the Gospel to the Gentiles. He, too, would pay the great cost of discipleship in Jesus’ name, suffering stonings and floggings, imprisonment, and many other hardships, and, finally, he would suffer martyrdom in Rome for the name of Jesus.

Today, two millennia after Christ, the name of Jesus and the challenge of his teachings are still troubling, still anathema to many, both in power and out. We live in a world that has largely abandoned religion and the traditional morals proscribed by religion, or that willfully distorts the Gospel for its own lesser purposes. It is a world that willfully bends its knee to all of the temptations that the devil tried on Jesus in the desert immediately after he was baptized in the Jordan. It is a world that has, in many ways, surrendered to the siren call of countless ‘gods’ that appeal to the fulfillment of every imaginable form of immediate gratification.

The Gospels, and the name of Jesus, still challenge the powerful, and the ‘wisdoms’ of the world today. Just as in Jesus’ time, when the worldly are challenged, they tend to react with ridicule, resentment, cynicism, and ultimately, hate. They still threaten and judge in accord with their own ‘tribunals’ of personal judgment, or the laws of man. And if we are brought before the judgment of the world, we are reminded by the Holy Spirit, “When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say” (Mt. 10: 19).

Suffering is real. The reality that we may pay a great cost in suffering, even death, for choosing daily to live in accord with the final commandment of Jesus is still with us. But it is still true, too, that the reward for willingly and humbly enduring that suffering in Jesus’ name is greater yet, and is eternal. In 1 Peter chapter 5, we see these words: “Be sober and vigilant. Your opponent, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings. The God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little. To him be dominion forever. Amen” (1 Peter 5: 8-11).

“The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid” (Hebrews 13: 6).