The first Sunday in November is observed each year as “The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church” (IDOP). This is commemorated around the world in hundreds of thousands of congregations. The need has never been greater, as all agree that the persecution of Christians around the world is the number one human rights issue of our day. More Christians have been martyred for their faith in our lifetime (those of us who are seniors) than in all the centuries of church history combined!
Even when it does not result in martyrdom (which it has in far too many instances!), that persecution is very real for families who are separated, sometimes with children forcibly taken from parents, with families driven from their homes and confined in crowded refugee camps, not to mention instances of imprisonment, torture, and the destruction of church buildings. These are all real people, our brothers and sisters in the Lord, members of the body of Christ, family members who desperately need our prayer support as they look to the Lord for protection and perseverance.
Even in the West, where it may not (yet) be that severe, hostility to those holding to their biblical convictions is very real and increasingly common. We’ve all followed the cases of Christian bakers, florists, and photographers who are threatened with crippling fines and the loss of their businesses and homes, all in the name of “non-discrimination.” So, who’s really being discriminated against in these scenarios? And what about medical professionals being forced to perform abortions, graduates threatened with the inability to be licensed if they’ve attended a law school which held to principles of historic biblical sexual morality, and candidates for elected office who are deemed “unfit” to serve if they are serious about their faith and their church?
The sources of such persecution come from “-isms” in nations all around the world. In Japan and SE Asia, it’s from Buddhism, in Russia and China and North Korea it’s from Communism, in Arabic nations and Indonesia and much of Africa (Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria) it’s from Islam, in Latin and South America it’s from Roman Catholicism, in Western Europe and North America it’s from secularism. But in every instance, these are simply the agents Satan uses, because the real struggle is between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.
One of the classics of Christians literature is John Foxe’s “Book of Christian Martyrs” (its simplified, abbreviated title), written to relate accounts of martyrs throughout the centuries. His account culminated in one of the worst times of persecution, the years 1553 to 1558, during the monstrous reign of England’s Queen “Bloody Mary,” daughter of King Henry VIII. Her determination to exterminate Protestantism and return England to the fold of Roman Catholicism led to hundreds (even children) being burned to death at the stake. Such brutal treatment of Christians continues today in equally horrific means in places like North Korea.
One of the best-known accounts of those years in England was the martyrdom of Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley in Oxford in 1555 and Thomas Cranmer a year later, all burned at the stake for their support of the doctrines of the Reformation, including a rejection of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation in the Mass and their support of the translation of the Bible into the English language. Those were the issues that led to the martyrdom in previous centuries of John Hus and William Tyndale.
As we remember the persecution of Christians through the centuries and into the present, one of the best hymns that give us words to sing is “Let Our Choirs New Anthems Raise.” The text is an 1862 translation by John Mason Neale, coming originally from the hand of Joseph the Hymnographer (ca. 816 – 883). Neale, a high church Anglican priest (associated with the Anglo-Catholic Oxford movement) championed the re-discovery of ancient hymn texts from Latin sources and brought many into use in 19th century Anglican worship, and from that into modern American hymnals. We are indebted to Neale for enriching our hymnody with such well-known translations for Advent and Christmas as “Of the Father’s Love Begotten,” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” and “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.” Add to that list these beloved translations: “All Glory, Laud, and Honor,” “The Day of Resurrection,” “O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing,” “Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation,” “Jerusalem, the Golden,” and “Christian, Dost Thou See Them.”
Joseph the Hymnographer was a ninth century Greek monk, ordained in Thessalonica, one of the greatest liturgical poets of the Eastern Orthodox Church. In some circles, he is remembered as “the sweet-voiced nightingale of the Church,” as well as for his confession of the Orthodox Faith in opposition to the Iconoclastic controversy (the use of images in worship). He was captured by slave-trading pirates, but after a year was able to return to Crete, and then to Constantinople, where he lived as an ascetic in some kind of sanctuary dedicated to John Chrysostom. Though briefly exiled in 858 for boldly denouncing the brother of the Empress Theodora for illicit cohabitation, he returned to Constantinople in 867. He was influential in inspiring the sending of the first missionaries to Russia. He is believed to be the author of hundreds of ancient “hymns” in the rhythmic styles of canons and kontakia.
But Let Our Choir New Anthems Raise is the one for which he is best-known today. Though it is not found in many hymnals, it deserves a place, not only because of its historical significance, but even more because of its theme, praising God for His faithfulness in preserving the gospel despite the terrible persecution experienced by saints in all places and all ages. We sing it to the tune ST KEVIN, written by Sir Arthur Sullivan, who also wrote the music we use for “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” He was a professor of composition at London’s Royal Academy of Music, best known for writing music to go with the lyrics of such operettas as William Gilbert’s “H. M. S. Pinafore.” The ST KEVIN tune is frequently found in hymnals with the text “Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain.”
In stanza 1, it’s immediately surprising that when we think of the martyrs’ sadness, we call on choirs to sing of the way God turns that sadness to joy and praise, waking the morn not with grief but with gladness! That’s because we know that those martyrs have won their crown and have been welcomed into the presence of the Savior in heaven. Echoing Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15, they laid the mortal down and put on th’immortal.
Let our choir new anthems raise, wake the morn with gladness;
God himself to joy and praise turns the martyrs’ sadness:
bright the day that won their crown, opened heav’n’s bright portal,
as they laid the mortal down and put on th’immortal.
In stanza 2, a huge contrast is set before us. On the one hand there is the reality of the horrible pain from torture by fire and sword, which ultimately come from Satan. But on the other hand there is the triumphant spirit that carried them unflinchingly into the flame as they saw by faith the land of heaven beyond, decked in all its glory. That’s where they stand now as part of that vast cloud of witnesses we read about in Hebrews 12.
Never flinched they from the flame, from the torture never;
vain the foeman’s sharpest aim, Satan’s best endeavor:
for by faith they saw the land decked in all its glory,
where triumphant now they stand with the victor’s story.
In stanza 3, we wonder if we could hold up as they did. Three phrases paint a powerful testimony: faith without shame, love without languishing, and hope that overcame the momentary anguish of pain at the experience of death. If our eyes are set on the Savior as were theirs, then surely we would be able to follow in their footsteps if called upon to lay down our lives for Christ, spurning the night of fear, looking for the glorious morrow.
Faith they had that knew not shame, love that could not languish;
and eternal hope o’ercame momentary anguish.
Up and follow, Christian men! Press through toil and sorrow;
spurn the night of fear and then, O the glorious morrow!
Here’s a video of the singing of this great hymn, though not with exactly the same words.