By Mark Nicholson

 As Christians we want to take seriously all of the commands of Christ, even the ones that are difficult to follow or difficult to find a context in which we can follow in the present world in which we live. For instance the one from Matthew chapter five that says: “You’ve heard that it was said: ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” I don’t really think in terms of having enemies these days and maybe part of that is the modern American context. Maybe you feel like you have specific enemies out there. If so, you can list your enemies for me. It’s harder for me to do so and so it’s harder for me to feel compelled to pray for my enemies. Yet we do understand that Christianity is falling under quite a bit of persecution, a new round of persecution that is bolder and more brazen than any time we’ve seen before. I have a picture of my wife, my father-in-law and myself standing in the American National Cemetery in Normandy in the northern part of France. The reason I thought of this picture is because it was one of my pastors, Chris Lawson, who reminded me this morning of the 9,200 graves seen in the field behind us that mark the final resting place of Americans who went during the second World War to defend France in her time of need. Many of these people were volunteers who went and laid down their lives in defense of France, when France was our friend in her time of need.

There is a lot of ongoing controversy and probably still will be for a long time about the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics in which there was a scene where the Last Supper of Christ was mocked and denigrated with transgender men dressed up as women or drag queens. It caused a lot of outrage and controversy because it was directly confrontational and intentionally hurtful and harmful. It was a mockery of one of the most sensitive parts of Christian tradition and one of the most sacred things that ever happened in the life of Christ, for whom is the basis of faith for 2 billion people on the planet. During that very meal that the Parisian Olympic Organizing Committee went to such great creative lengths and pains to denigrate and mock, Jesus said: “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.” And then he went on to define that love. He said: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Consider the picture of us with the graves of thousands and thousands of Americans who laid down their lives for their friends in the country of France. For many of those people whose grave is marked with a white cross, their dying prayer was to this God that was so denigrated in the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Make no mistake. I do not consider these transvestite men to be my enemy, but they consider Christianity to be their great enemy. I do not consider France or the Olympic Organizing Committee to be my enemy, but for some reason they chose to persecute Christianity. In such a way, Jesus reminds us that this is where we can apply the Scriptures that seem so hard sometimes to figure out a way to apply: How do we pray for our enemies? How do we pray for those who persecute Christianity? We are under the microscope as Christians in an openly, increasingly hostile environment in the world we live in. These people consider us their enemies and as such, we can pray for them. We can pray for the citizenry of France. Not every French citizen was offended by this. I’m sure many but not every French citizen applauded this. I’m sure there were many French citizens, Christian and non-Christian, who thought that this was a poor choice to mock the Last Supper during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Nonetheless, we can pray, apply the Scriptures and we can look for ways to forgive our enemies. In many cases, those that PassionLife ministers to around the world feel like they have made themselves an enemy of God by corrupting their hands with the shedding of innocent blood. This is not the case. These are people who can be prayed for. These are friends that we can pray for to bring back into the loving fold of God through forgiveness, mercy and grace, which is what the Gospel proclaims. Join me in proclaiming grace, forgiveness and restoration to those Christians around the world that PassionLife is ministering to, even as we are reminded by current events to pray for those who persecute us.