Fidelis

Have you ever found a time when you've been in a rather disreputable bathroom, seen graffiti, and noticed that sometimes people write back and forth to one another?  This is the nuttiest thing I've seen in a long time, especially in an age of social media, where everyone has his or her own wall, can be poked at any opportunity, and where you can write on other people's walls all day.  This is the new age of things, but as long as there have been walls, real walls, people have been writing on them.

You may not know how true that is, but it is seriously, abundantly true.  For the history of humanity largely deals with what we have left on the walls of things.  Think, for a moment, of some of the most famous walls of all time, and I'm thinking in this moment of Lascaux.  The cave paintings in there are some of the oldest things that we have as far as human artistic endeavors.  People making things, people making art, people composing and constructing things that look like other things.  And that's almost as old as people themselves.

It should come as no surprise, then, that in thinking about All Saints' day, we think about what it is that those saints left behind.  And in thinking about All Saints' day, it's nice that we have the beatitudes to give us some comfort and direction.  The Beatitudes tell us that we are blessed, blessed by God, when we are in a variety of bad, dangerous, and unpleasant situations.  It's easy to be and feel blessed by God when everything is going well, when there are essentially no problems, but boy oh boy, it is much harder to be on point, to continue with things as though there were no problems, to feel the blessing of the almighty Lord on you when things aren't going all that well.  The Beatitudes serve to remind you of something crucial, which is that God is still there, he is loves and comforts you, even and especially when things aren't going your way, exactly.  I can't tell you how many times I've had the conversation with people where they will say after a catastrophe, after an event that has plagued them, after a death or a breakup 'where is God in all of this?  Where's your God now?'  Good question, I suppose, and it really has two answers - one, that he has been with you this entire time, and you really didn't stop to acknowledge him in the slightest, and two, the beatitudes are there to show you how God blesses you even in the midst of suffering.  I don't want to get all 'footprints in the sand' with you, but I do want you to know that the beatitudes are there for you to see and find comfort in the real suffering that exists in the real world.  There are blessings there for the Christian even in dark times.

And these days, in Canada, in the 21st century, how much are you really expecting to give up for your Christian faith? If you're like most of the rest of us, the answer is 'not much, really.'  For the cost of being a Christian is not that high.  You're not going to be put in stocks, nor burned at the stake.  You're not going to lose your job (probably), nor are you going to be crucified, beheaded, sawn asunder, sewn into wild animal skins, or anything of the kind.  Someone may call you a dummy, though, and that's pretty much it.  And what do we fear as current humans? We are so far removed from any possible threat of hunger or thirst, so far removed from any threat of cold or scorching heat, that we move through our lives with so little discomfort that our priorities have changed.  You don't fear violence or famine, because those things don't really exist for you, not in a real, tangible way, anyway.  But what you do fear is a loss of social standing.  You fear a drop in your likes, a social shunning that might happen.  And if you hold to Biblical views on things a social shunning will happen. This is inevitable, given that you are dealing with a fallen world with its own priorities.  And the fallen world that we live in is one in which we are constantly and perpetually dealing with the idea that our sins should be served and serviced.  And if you take a stand on anything, from a Christ-centered view of creation to an ethic that puts God and family first, then you will find yourself running afoul of the world that we are living in, and that will place you squarely in the camp of the last two verses of the beatitudes, that is where it says quite clearly 'Blessed are you when people reviles you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'

For the average comfy Christian, that's going to be the only cost you're going to have to pay.  People are going to make fun of you. They're going to give you a hard time, they're going to give you the business.  They're going to think you're silly or outdated, and there is immense pressure to cave on that, just to fit in, to go along to get along, and to do the worst thing as an observant Christian, which is to conform Christ to men, and not men to Christ.  Being a Christian is going to cost you something, it is going to pinch, it is going to hurt, there's really no way around it.  The only way to avoid even this tiny cost would be to quit, or to make the Gospel say nothing.  Because the Gospel is always going to be counter-cultural, its message will always be counter-cultural, and the world will always try to shut it down. And this isn't new, in fact it is as old as the Christian faith itself.

As we celebrate All Saints' day, I would like to introduce you to a saint you may never have heard of.  Alexamenos. Have you heard of him? Perhaps, but perhaps not.  In either case, Alexamenos is an important guy, given that he is at the centre of the first, earliest depiction of Jesus of Nazareth.  Now, Alexamenos didn't draw this depiction, he didn't illustrate it, didn't call attention to it.  Instead, it's mocking him.  It's a drawing making fun of Alexamenos worshiping his god, that of Jesus Christ.

In case you can't read the writing, it says 'Alexamenos worships his God.'  What do we know about Alexamenos? Not much, save that he was obviously a Christian, and a Christian in a time where there was going to be large scale mockery for believing in a crucified and risen savior, here depicted as a donkey.  And this is probably the earliest depiction of Jesus in existence.  This is probably the earliest depiction of Jesus around, you know, and it's a crude, insulting one.  It's not nice, or fun, it doesn't praise or worship Jesus, heck, it isn't even neutral.  It's insulting and offensive, and what it shows you is that mockery of Christians has been around from the word go.  In fact, Jesus himself was mocked while he was on the cross, so I don't know why we think that would have changed ever. 

Now, we know that Alexamenos was insulted for his faith, we know that he was mocked and derided.  We know from the evidence left behind that someone, at some point, thought it would be fun to make sport of Alexamenos' faith, and to give him a hard time for what he believed.  And this person who etched this into a wall was likely hoping that Alexamenos would give up his faith, would surrender what he believed, and cave into pressure.  And if Alexamenos had done so, along with all his Christian contemporaries in the second century, then there is a great chance that there would be no Christian church at all in the 21st century.  For people living in the time of Alexamenos, shortly after the time of Jesus, they were functionally living in the last Christian generation, as we are today. Every single generation of Christians in the world has been living in the last Christian generation.  We have all be existing in the twilight of the faith, unless we should choose to pass it along, no matter what the cost might be.  There will be a cost, obviously, and for us, it is likely the cost of mocking, of derision, of a ribbing from friends, family, acquaintances, people who will give us a hard time for deigning to believe in something so hopelessly outdated as the Christian faith.  The world will stand against us in what we believe, for they wish not to believe it, and that's why we need the last little bit of the beatitudes, that promise us that we are blessed when people mock us, utter all kinds of falsehoods against us on account of our Christian faith.  Great is our reward in heaven, which makes sense.  The world will mock us and deride us, the world will oppose us.  In this life we will have trouble, as Jesus said, but take heart, for he has overcome the world.

The Christian faith is built, then, on the legacy of the saints, those who have come before us, lived and died, who have folded our hands in prayer and placed into those hands the holy scriptures.  The Christian faith is built up off of people who have passed the faith down to us, both in commands and in whispers, people who have prayed with us and for us, who have encouraged us and built us up.  People from the time of Alexamenos onward, who kept the faith in a crucified and risen Lord, slain for our sins, and refused to give it up.  For if you have ever wondered what Alexamenos might have answered to the person who mocked him and laughed at him, well we actually know.  For Alexamenos wrote something back.  Etched crudely into the wall in the same location is Alexamenos' response.  Two words only.

ALEXAMENOS FIDELIS.

Alexamenos is faithful.

People held fast to that faith in Christ, for thousands of years they did so because they knew that the treasure waiting for them was bigger than the world.  The world never had any time for the Gospel, not truly.  The world has always resisted the Gospel, which is why faithful men and women have always had to pay a price for following it.  It may have been manning the walls in Constantinople, or hiding in the catacombs of Paris.  It may have been walking along the sand bridge of Lindisfarne, or sapping mines at Vienna.  All these people, for all these hundreds of years have all lived and died in the faith, and have all breathed that same word 'fidelis.'  Faithful.  Faithful to their faithful God, who holds fast to his promises made, and is ever faithful to us.  Be faithful to the crucified and risen Lord.  Celebrate all the saints who led you to this state, known and unknown.  And breathe that faith to the next generation, fold their hands in prayer, read the scriptures to them, and encourage them in their faith, that they may say with Peter, Andrew, James and John, Mary and Martha, Lois and Eunice, Alexamenos and everyone from that point onward who has carried the faith of Jesus Christ.

Fidelis.