The "Crown of Smyrna". Viewed at night the city lights make it look diamond-encrusted.
Smyrna was a very ancient city, with a story that runs back, it would appear, almost to the dawn of history. To this day it numbers a quarter of a million inhabitants, and is a centre of learning of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In John's day it had many claims to distinction.
Like Ephesus it was a sea port with an especially rich trade in wines. It was also an outstandingly beautiful city, a model of good town planning with wide, spacious streets and well kept parkland. Its main street, the Golden Street, boasted no less than five splendid temples to various deities, a famous stadium, an equally famous library, and the largest public theatre in Asia, built as a monument to the Greek poet Homer whose birth place it was claimed to be. Above it rose a rugged hill encrusted with battlements, much as the castle dominates Edinburgh today, and this was known as the Crown of Smyrna.
Enthusiastically Roman from very early days when Rome was struggling up to dominance, she was proud of her alliance. As early as 200 BC she had erected a temple to the goddess Roma, and in AD 26 she won out against keen competition from Ephesus and Sardis in the bid to be chosen as the site for a new temple to be dedicated to the worship of the Emperor Tiberias in the Province of Asia. At one time, learning in their public assembly of great hardship being endured by a Roman army wintering in the north, its citizens divested themselves of their clothes there and then for the army's relief. Rome was not mean in her gratitude for this sort of patriotic spirit, and the city was granted many privileges.
Imagine then what a staunch centre for the cult of Emperor worship Smyrna was, and as John's letter reveals, this deeply affected the consequences of Christian witness there. To refuse to burn your pinch of incense, acknowledging Caesar to be Lord and God, was to have the mood of the whole city turn virulently against you.
Smyrna too contained a large Jewish population. Without wishing to resurrect old animosities, it is a fact of history that the Jews were among the fiercest and most persistent enemies of the Christian Church in New Testament times.
So Smyrna held a twin threat to the Christian congregation there - the pride of Rome and the hatred of the Jews. They were caught between the devil of Caesar worship and the deep blue sea of Jewish venom. In that city, to be a faithful Christian meant being faithful unto death.
Smyrna shares with Philadelphia the distinction of receiving from the risen Lord nothing but praise. He was content with her as she was.
To the church in Smyrna, Christ is referred to as "the first and the last, who died and came to life."
Here was a greeting to encourage its members, for some of them were soon to die. Men live to die; Christ died to live - and bring with Him all who die believing in Him. Christians in Smyrna knew that the One Who promised them His faithful companionship from first to last had Himself passed through the valley of the shadow of death before them, and made it safe for who should follow Him through it.
In the old days, when much of the world was unexplored, men drew their maps, and in those places where no-one had been, and about which therefore they were in complete ignorance, the map makers wrote such informative gems as "Here be dragons," or "Here be burning fiery sands." The Christian can take the map of life and on its margins where the realm of death appears - that "bourn from which no traveller returns - they can write with confidence, "Here be Christ ... with Whom my life is hid in God."
Rupert Brooke, on the eve of battle in the first world war, wrote,
Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death's endeavour
Safe though all safety's lost;
Safe where men fall ...
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
Of His brethren in Smyrna, Christ said that He knew three things.
1. I know your
tribulation
The word is one whose leading idea is pressure. It describes what
happens when the massive mill stone grinds the wheat to powder on the
rock beneath it. It is a word that throbs with sombre meaning. That
is what loyalty to Christ was doing to His people in Smyrna, and He
Who Himself was crushed between obedience to His Father and the
hatred of men says to them with infinite tenderness and complete
understanding, "I know your tribulation."
2. I know your
poverty
There are two Greek words for poverty. One means the poverty of a
man who can barely make ends meet. The other means downright
destitution. The one describes the man who has nothing left over, the
other the man who has nothing at all. It is the second word that is
used here - not because the church of Smyrna was a down town mission
hall full of converted vagrants who had had nothing to begin with,
but because, like those described in the letter to the Hebrews, they
had "had a hard struggle after they were enlightened, being publicly
exposed to abuse and affliction, and had had to accept the plundering
of their property." Indeed, it is possible that the writer to the
Hebrews had the very congregation in Smyrna itself in mind when he
wrote. "They had accepted it all joyfully, since they knew they had a
better possession and an abiding one in the heavens." (Heb. 10:32-34)
In one brief but glorious aside, the Lord says to them, "But you are
rich."
Would we accept the wrecking our house and the plundering of all our goods for the sake of our testimony to Jesus ... joyfully?
They were hungry and cold at night in Smyrna. They had lost their homes, their possessions, their jobs, and their reputations, for ...
3. I know the
slander you endure
In the catacombs outside Rome to this day there is a drawing of
the Cross beneath which a Christian is shown bowing; but the figure
on the Cross, like Bottom in Midsummer Night's Dream, has the head of
a long-eared, grinning ass. And underneath, the inscription reads:
"Alex worships his god."
Because in those days the unbaptised withdrew from the worship service before the Lord's Supper was eaten so that the Communion Service was private, and because the Supper was known to refer to the shedding of blood, Christians were charged with indulging licentious and cruel orgies in which human sacrifice took place. We have simply no idea how Christians were reviled in those times.
"I know these things," says the Lord. And He knew, not simply by observation, but by experience. They had accused Him to His face of being a bastard; they had stripped Him stark naked and hoisted Him up on a cross, a revolting public spectacle, and spat gobs of spit in His face while He hung there.
"I know the crushing pressure, the pain of humiliation, the agony of reviling ... I know these things to the deepest reaches of the hurt they inflict." He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. He could look into the eyes of His brethren in Smyrna and there would pass between them that look of recognition that only friends can exchange who have together experienced some secret hurt. He had a right to say to them, "Do not fear what you are about to suffer." He knows that death has no final power to harm. "He who conquers shall not be hurt ... by the second death."
But observe the Lord's honesty with them. He promises these folk at Smyrna no escape - not because He is lacking in sympathy for them, but because He loves them too well to deceive them.
They were to be flung into prison. Imprisonment in Roman times was not, as it is with us, a sentence. You were imprisoned only pending trial, not afterwards. What followed afterwards was usually worse. "For ten days you will have tribulation." The phrase 'ten days' is not to be taken literally; it is simply an idiom meaning 'for a short time.' Their tribulation was to be short and sharp. Why? Because it would end in death. "Be thou faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life."
Jesus does not promise them release. The persecution will intensify, the darkness will deepen, the pressure will worsen - all this.
So? ... "Fear not!"
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? Shall distress? Shall persecution? Shall famine or nakedness or peril or sword cut us off from His love? No," cries Paul, "in all these things" - not out of them but in them, not by release from them but in the endurance of them - "we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." (Rom. 8:35-39)
Fifty years on from
the time the letter in Revelation was written to Smyrna, its citizens
murdered an old man of ninety. His name was Polycarp, and he was then
Bishop of the Christian Church in Smyrna.
It was on a 'high day,' a holiday. The crowds were in a highly
excited and inflammable mood. The public arena was crammed for the
spectacle of a "Christian killing". One Christian youth, Germanicus,
had been so unafraid of death that he had actually encouraged the
beasts to attack him. The crowds, angered because he had robbed them
of the spectacle of fear, clamoured for the aged bishop. He at least
would tremble.
The old man had been prevailed on by the entreaties of his
congregation to hide away in the country. But on that day, Feb. 22,
AD 156, he was tracked down by the authorities to his hiding place.
He made no attempt to flee. He begged permission first to prepare a
meal for his captors, and then a brief hour to retire for prayer,
which they allowed him. As they drove into the city the officer in
charge of the detail urged him to recant. "What harm can it do," he
asked, "to burn a pinch of incense to the Emperor?"
But Polycarp was steadfast.
On arrival, he was roughly pushed out of the carriage so that he
stumbled and fell. Then he was taken before the Proconsul in the
amphitheatre.
"Have respect to your old age," he was urged. "Swear by the genius of
Caesar ... swear and I will release you. Revile the Christ."
The old man's voice was not strong, but what he said was heard with a
high-pitched clarity: "Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He
has done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who has saved
me?"
But the Proconsul persisted.
"Swear by the genius of Caesar ... I have wild beasts, old man. Look!
If you will not change your mind, I must throw you to them."
Again the high, clear voice was heard: "Bid them be brought."
The Proconsul answered, "Then as you despise the beasts, I make you
to be destroyed by fire."
Infuriated, Gentiles and Jews, both, despite the fact that it was a
Sabbath, gathered faggots for the pile.
Polycarp stood by the stake, asking that he be not fastened to it,
and as the fire was prepared he prayed aloud, "O Lord, Almighty God,
the Father of Thy beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through Whom we received
knowledge of Thee, I thank Thee that Thou hast thought me worthy of
this day and this hour, to share the cup of Thy Christ among the
company of Thy witnesses."
The fire was kindled then, but as the wind drove the flames away from
him and prolonged his ordeal, a soldier's sword put an end to his
misery.
If love is the first mark of a true church, as we saw from the letter to Ephesus, then the willingness to suffer without reviling is the badge of it. When Paul composed his Hymn to Love in I Corinthians 13 the first quality he ascribed to the love which Christ brings to birth in us is that "it suffers long." The ability to endure slander, scorn, hate and violence without retaliation or recrimination and preserve a steady spirit of goodwill toward those who persecute us is the distinctive mark of the Christian. This - more than any other thing - is what should set Christians apart as a people.
"I say to you," said Jesus, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be true sons of your Father Who is in Heaven." (Matt. 5:44-45) He loves His enemies! "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." (Rom. 5:10) If we are really reconciled to that God, we shall give proof of it by having the same mind toward those who are enemy to us as He had toward us who were enemy to Him. "If we love only those who love us, what do we more than others? Even publicans and sinners do that." (Matt. 5:46)
The marks of true love are not only its capacity to give, but its capacity also to suffer and not change. It is that sort of love in which we are to abound and increase, not only toward one another, but as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, to all men. That is what will establish our hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father. (I Thess. 3:12-13) Be thou faithful in this ... unto death" - right up to and including death if need be - as did Jesus the faithful witness, as did Stephen a faithful witness - praying for those who hate you even while they kill you. We are to witness to our Saviour's faithful and redeeming love, not in spite of our suffering, but by means of it.
"Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown of life." The Christians in Smyrna could hardly fail to see in this a reference to the fortified hilltop which crowned their city like a coronet. The Crown of Smyrna rose up out of all the noise and turmoil of the city below it, impregnable and still, the symbol of solid strength and durability. In like manner, out of all the striving of Christian living, the ceaseless fight of faith, there rises the crown of true life, the Christ-life, only to be had from Him - a life of durable love, embattled but impregnable, which is the only shelter where beleaguered men may run for safety.
Those who conquer "shall not be hurt by the second death." Die we must, but beyond death lie light and life. Through much tribulation we enter the Kingdom of God.
The story is told of
Hilaire Belloc who with a friend was climbing in the Pyrenees. It had
been a beautiful day, and they made camp for the night on a rock
shelf. But during the night the wind rose, whipping the snow all
round them into a swirling blizzard. The wind shrieked, the tent
sides cracked like pistol shots, and the thunderous roar of a
landslide sounded as if doomsday was upon them.
"Is this the end of the world, or what?" his friend shouted.
"No," cried Belloc, "this is how the dawn comes in the
Pyrenees."
The night may be dark and long, but God does not mock His children with a night that has no ending. The darkness must pass, and we shall see God's glory in the morning.
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