This month, our meditation has been based upon a poem penned by Irina Ratushinskaya. In the following passage, the writings of Irina Ratushinskaya (Russian prisoner for her faith in Christ) provide us with fodder for reflection and perhaps application:
Brothers and sisters, please pray for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:25)
"Believe me, it was often thus:
In solitary cells, on winter nights
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.
My dear ones, thank you all
Who did not falter, who believed in us!
In the most fearful prison hour
We probably would not have passed
Through everything--from end to end,
Our heads held high, unbowed--
Without your valiant hearts
To light our path."
By Irina Ratushinskaya, about the value
of the prayers we pray for Christians in prisons
A moment of consideration: It is not often that we as intercessors are offered a special insight into the souls of those persecuted Christians for whom we pray. Irina offers us just such insight that brings her heart to ours. We pray that our prayers and those of fellow believers would strengthen our suffering brothers and sisters of the faith, in their trials and tribulations. We pray, knowing that God's hand has moved in history as a result of prayer (Abraham's prayer for Sodom, where Lot lived [Genesis 18:22-33], Moses' prayer for his people [Exodus 32:9-14], and others), and that the effective prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:16) We pray, knowing that God will give courage and encouragement to those who suffer for His Name. Irina assures us that we do strengthen, and God does bring staying power to those Believers in prison for their faith. It is said that if we tell a person he/she is brave, then we will help him or her become so. It also holds that if we pray for bravery, boldness, courage, etc., we will help our brothers and sisters in chains to be so. Have we encouraged someone today, in their dire straits?
The Boston Marathon is among the world’s best-known races. One of the most infamous portions of the 26-mile, 385-yard course is "Heartbreak Hill." It’s there, along that hill, that thousands of spectators gather. They stand and cheer as they see weary runners about to collapse. During one race a young man was near total exhaustion as he approached the foot of Heartbreak Hill. It was doubtful he could go a step farther. About halfway up the hill an older man, who was obviously in better shape, came alongside the younger man, put his arm around him, and spoke quietly to him. Together, step by step, they painstakingly made their way up Heartbreak Hill.
If life and death are in the power of the tongue, so are victory and defeat! Whom have you encouraged lately? God's Word says that we are to remember those in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since we also are in the body. (Hebrews 13:3) We are also asked to encourage others and to build up fellow Believers. (1 Thessalonians 5:11) Perhaps we might say, "My job is to make others do what they don't want to do in order that they can do what they’ve dreamed about doing all of their lives." Paul Claudel said that "Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with his Presence". We can pray that God will fill the suffering of our brothers and sisters with Himself, for He knows our pain. Most of the Psalms were conceived and written in times of difficulty; most of the epistles likewise, were written amid suffering in prison. In these and other conditions, our prayers do encourage and strengthen Believers in adversity. We come alongside the Christians who have received the gift of belief and of suffering for the Name of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:29). We can come alongside them, and seek the binding up of their wounds, the balm for their bruises, the healing of broken bodies--through Christ, through the divine Healer, and One who Himself bore such hurts upon Himself at the hands of hatred and debasement (Hebrews 12:3).
Perhaps the only cure for suffering is to face it head on, grasp it around the neck and use it, as Mary Craig had averred. This, too, might be our prayer for the fallen, the infirm, the injured--that God would instill within our brothers and sisters in chains the drive to carpe diem, to take a different look at their difficulties. God is certainly able to "fashion a silk purse out of a sow's ear" in terms of their prison lot.
But, how might we pray, to have the effect described by Irina? How might we pray to encourage her and others "bound to be free" of sin's hold and man's despicable ways? Consider:
The penalties which early Christians had to suffer were terrible beyond description. All the world knows of the Christians who were flung to the lions or burned at the stake; but these were kindly deaths.
- Nero wrapped the Christians in pitch and set them alight, and used them as living torches to light his gardens.
- Nero sewed Believers in the skins of wild animals and set his hunting dogs upon them to tear them to death.
- Christians were tortured on the rack;
- They were scraped with pincers;
- Molten lead was poured hissing upon them;
- Red hot brass plates were affixed to the tenderest parts of their bodies;
- Eyes were torn out;
- Parts of their bodies were cut off and roasted before their eyes;
- Their hands and feet were burned while cold water was poured over them to strengthen the agony.
These things are not pleasant to think about, but these are the things a Christian had to be prepared for, if he or she took his or her stand with Christ. And in each situation of excruciating pain or torment, fellow believers of their day were praying for them. How might we pray, to give stricken Believers strength through the agony? How might we beseech the holy Father, through our tears, to release these sufferers through earthly reprieve or the release of death, into the arms of Christ? Paul it was, who said, "...it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:20-21) Suffering Christians often consider the release and relief of death, to live forever in the presence of their Lord, as a viable and altogether desirable option--as Paul did.
We might pray that God will celebrate the life of committed martyrs, readily welcoming them into the heavenly realms. We might pray that fires used in torture would fizzle before the persecutory irons or plates grew hot enough. We might ask that God would give those walks by faith, who knew the loss of their eyes--if they would be released. And we might plead for such release and deliverance, not as physically blinded, but acquitted of the false charges against them. We might pray that God's angelic armies would surround the bent-over and pained believers, and safeguard these. We have been given a sobering gift and duty to uphold our persecuted brothers and sisters of the faith. Praying encouragement into someone's life is a humbling responsibility. Irina Ratushinskaya wrote that without prayer support from fellow believers, she and other imprisoned Christians might not have been able to endure their cataclysmic lives with heads held high through faith in our Lord. She and her incarcerated Christian cell mates would not have experiences as described thusly:
A sudden sense of joy and warmth
And a resounding note of love.
And then, unsleeping, I would know
A-huddle by an icy wall:
Someone is thinking of me now,
Petitioning the Lord for me.
May we as intercessors pray encouragement into the lives of those whose bleak outlook or cell walls bleed joy from them. May we as intercessors pray for these ones who suffer, as though we suffer side by side with them. May we as intercessors seek the boon of the Holy Spirit in our prayers, looking to Him when we do not know how to pray (Romans 8:26) or what to pray. May we as intercessors continue petitioning the Lord for these fellow servants of the most high God, and may we rejoice that our petitions are heard, and are begun to be answered by the Lord God even before we express them. (Isaiah 65:24) May these precious souls who languish in world-imposed agony know our faithful, prayerful support, and not slump to discouragement but know the great power of God at work in their lives--to lift up, to empower, to build up, to embrace, to enable these saints to persevere for our God, and to devote their undying love for Him.