Fight the Good Fight – Br. Jack Crowley
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Br. Jack Crowley
Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
“Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go” (John 21:18).
These are some of the final words spoken by Jesus to Saint Peter. “Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” Jesus’ words hit us at a gut level. They hit us at a gut level because we have all experienced our own little version of what he is talking about – some notion that at some point in the past, our lives were perfect, we were carefree, and we seemingly had the freedom to do as we please. Then at some point in life as we matured, it felt like our hands got tied. We felt like we were tied down and bound to some situation, some person, some job, or some dream we desperately held on to. We said to ourselves, “If just this one thing, this one problem, was loosened from my hands, then I could really start living.” Very frequently you hear people in situations like this say that their problems are killing them, as if they were being martyred.
“Someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”
These words are not full of sunshine and rainbows, but they are true. Jesus was warning Peter that one day he would be arrested and martyred. Tonight we remember the martyrdom of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul, two Christians who helped form the foundation of our church and were killed for their beliefs.
I know it always feels a little grim to remember the martyrs, yet it is important to remember that blood has been spilt for us to have this moment together. Blood has been spilt for our salvation, and blood has been spilt to give us a renewal of life.
Most likely, none of us here will end up being martyrs in the traditional sense. We are lucky enough to have the privilege to celebrate the Eucharist freely and openly. Many Christians in many parts of the world do not have the opportunities to do so. Most likely, none of us here will be martyrs, but we will all feel at different points like something is killing us or sucking the life out of us. We will all feel at different times like our hands are tied and we are being led somewhere we do not wish to go. We all have our own little version of martyrdom: a death by a thousand cuts instead of a crucifixion.
The great question of our lives is: What do we do with these feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and despair? How do we navigate through them and find God in them? How do we look for the resurrected Christ when our eyes are bloodshot?
If the martyrs have anything to teach us, it is that difficult situations are crucibles of faith. The great irony is we can find ourselves feeling the most alive, present, authentic, honest, and real when death is close at hand. We strip away whatever characters we’ve been playing, whatever customs of personality we’ve been inhabiting, and get in touch with whatever truth we continue to hold in our hearts underneath it all. Of course, this is not a pleasant process, nor is it ever clean. The formation of faith in life is inherently messy and can turn rocky at any given moment.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul were two Christians of courage. They fought the good fight and abided in their spiritual convictions through the very end. They stood in the breach of life and for the sake of God. We too must fight the good fight. Not with our fists, but with our hearts, and our minds, and our prayers. The battles of our age are spiritual battles – battles of bitterness versus forgiveness, battles of strife versus healing, and battles of insanity versus the collective wisdom our Creator has endowed us with.
We fight these good fights with every moment of our lives. It’s in the way we smile, it’s in the way we wash dishes, it’s in the way we take care of ourselves while helping others. We find God in every corner of the universe and we look for his son, Jesus Christ, in everyone we meet.
This good fight of ours is not an easy one, for sure. We will get exhausted, sweaty, overheated, and begging for a break. We’ll crave that living water with everything we have.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul did not die in vain. Here we are, two thousand years later, proclaiming our faith for all to see – proclaiming to the world our love of God and the wonders God has done for us. The good news is that God is with us every step of the way. Every fight, every battle, every time we course correct, God is right there with us. God sticks to us and we must stick to God.
Thank you for this article, brother Crowley. It has given me food for thought. The apostles’ sacrifice was their entire lives, but a smaller sacrifice that modern Christians are sometimes called to make is the death of their public image through being ‘cancelled’ for failing to walk in step with the popular, sinful cultural practices of the world.