The Martyr's Song

Sing O son of Zion.
Shout O child of mine.
Rejoice with all your heart and soul and mind.
I’ve been waiting to dance with you in fields full of colors you have never seen…

This is the beginning of The Martyr’s Song by Todd Agnew. He co wrote the song with Ted Dekker to go along with Ted Dekker’s new book with the same name: The Martyr’s Song.

The Martyr’s song is one of the most powerful books I have read in a long time. It opens with a mysterious lady named Eve, who desires to make a plain and in all honesty ugly, beautiful. Soon Eve begins to tell us the story of a small Bosnian village and their struggle with evil. The story is brutal and violent but it is also beautiful and filled with hope. People are beaten and killed but their deaths are simultaneously enormously sad and wonderfully joyous occasions. This book looks at the face of death but then masterfully demonstrates how Christ defeated death when He died on that cross and then rose again.

1Co 15:53-57 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (54) When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." (55) "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (56) The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (57) But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Dekker said in an interview that he started writing this book after a death in his own family. He began questioning how real his belief in a life after death really was. I think that is a question that we must all ask ourselves. Do we truly eagerly await the day that we will die; the day that we will be forever united with our Father? Paul believed this with all his heart which is why he said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:21).

Now, let me be clear. Death itself is not what is so great. Death was the result of sin; it is a curse. Jesus wept (not just cried but wept) when His friend Lazarus died, but not because He was sad for Lazarus! As many of you know, Jesus later raised Lazarus from the dead. As the great Christian author C.S. Lewis put it after he went into a coma and almost died, “Tho’ I am by no means unhappy I can’t help feeling it was rather a pity I did revive in July. I mean, having been glided so painlessly up to the Gate it seems hard to have it shut in one’s face and know that the whole process must be some day gone through again…Poor Lazarus!”

Many times I seem to forget the wonderful life that awaits me when I die. Death should not be dreaded – why would we dread our homecoming?! Death is merely the door to a new life. It is the new and wonderful life that comes after death that we, who are in Christ, look forward to. Indeed death for the sinner and the saint is the same. It is that which looms after death for each one that causes one to fear death above all other things and the other to eagerly await it above all other things. Lewis stated this very well when he said, “If we really believe what we say we believe - if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a ‘wandering to find home’, why should we not look forward to the arrival?”

Lord, help us to faithfully look forward to the day that we are perfectly united with You for all eternity.

Sing O son of Zion.
Shout O child of mine.
Dance with all the strength that you can find,
For you are finally home.