'A great multitude that no one could count': Eastertide and the witness of the martyrs
Revelation 7:9-17
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.” [1]
Sometime around the year 112AD - a few decades after the last books of the New Testament had been written and less than a century after the death and resurrection of Jesus - a Roman bureaucrat called Pliny, governor of a region in what is now northern Turkey, wrote to his imperial master, the Emperor, describing his response to the growth of the new Christian faith in the region:
“in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed.”
He went on to say that his investigations had revealed that the Christians offered worship “to Christ as to a god”. He particularly noted that he confirmed this by - in his words - “torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses”. [2]
Even after the passage of many centuries, Pliny’s words are rather chilling, as we hear the casual ease with which this bureaucrat refers to the torture and execution of Christians.
Why were Christians being executed and tortured by this Roman official?
Not, Pliny accepted, because of any wrong-doing or immorality. But because they would not worship the old gods and - above all - they would not reverence the Emperor as divine.
For Pliny, the offence of the Christians was that they denied Caesar to be lord, for Christ is Lord.
This is the background to the strange, odd book which closes the New Testament and which provided our second reading this morning: the Revelation to John.
It is a book unlike any other in the New Testament, packed with weird imagery and strange visions. Part of the reason for that weird imagery and for those strange visions is that Revelation was written just as the Roman Empire began its persecution of Christians: the imagery and visions cloak a message of hope, strengthening Christians in the face of Roman persecution, encouraging them that the the kingdom of Christ is infinitely greater than Roman power and wrath.
And so, in our reading today, John, the author of Revelation, speaks of a vision in which he views those before the throne of God. He beholds “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation .. robed in white, with palm branches in their hands”.
His guide in this vision - the ‘elder’ - tells him who they are: “Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’.”
This is how the early Christians spoke about those martyred for the faith. The white robes and the palm branches were signs of victory: for victory did not belong to the persecutors but to the faith which they sought, and failed, to extinguish.
And, according to John’s vision, these martyrs were “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation”.
Now, this seems a somewhat odd statement: the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire, after all, was only just beginning. Yes, many had already been martyred, but not a numberless multitude, and not from every nation.
John’s vision, however, introduces us to a significant aspect of the Church’s witness in every age: every age of the Church has had and continues to have its martyrs. John’s vision, in other words, was also looking forward: that “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation” included the many Christian martyrs of later centuries.
There were, for example, double the number of Christians martyred for their faith in the 20th century than in every previous century combined. [3]
Also amongst that “great multitude that no one could count”, seen by John, Christian martyrs from our own times - including the 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt, beheaded by ISIS in Libya in 2015, for their courageous refusal to abandon the Christian faith. [4]
“Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’.”
John’s vision of Christian martyrs, from across the centuries, before the throne of God and the Risen Christ is a call to us to recognise the witness of the martyrs.
What is it that we learn from them?
There are three things we might say.
Firstly, we recognise that there have been and continue to be martyrs from across all the Christian traditions. If you ever visit Westminster Abbey, entering through the Great West Door, you will see above it ten statues - depictions of ten modern martyrs. These martyrs are Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Orthodox, Reformed. [5]
The late Pope Francis put it this way: “Today, we have the ecumenism of blood. In some countries they kill Christians because they wear a cross or have a Bible, and before killing them they don't ask if they're Anglicans, Lutherans, Catholics or Orthodox. Their blood is mixed. To those who kill, we are Christians”. [6]
The martyrs of past centuries and of today, remind us that whatever the differences between our various traditions, we are first, above all, Christians: that there is a fundamental unity between us that our different ecclesiastical traditions cannot obscure or remove.
Secondly, the witness of the martyrs calls us to recognise that, while our own situation here in the United Kingdom is far removed from what the martyrs experienced, the witness of the martyrs is not at all far removed from what very many of our fellow Christians across the globe experience today. 380 million Christians today - at this moment - live in places in which high levels of persecution are experienced. [7]
Amongst the most dangerous places for Christians to live today is Nigeria - a country with a large Christian presence, with vibrant Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, but in which Jihadists brutally target Christian villages. In 2024, 3,100 Christians were killed because of such deliberate, targeted violence in Nigeria. [8]
When we read John’s vision of the great multitude of martyrs before the throne of God, it calls us to faithfully pray for those Christians experiencing persecution today and, in whatever way we can, to support them and stand alongside them.
Finally, the “great multitude of Christian” martyrs across the centuries, and from recent times, point us to the truth of what it is we proclaim here in our parish church week by week, not least in this season of Easter.
It is because of the truth and reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ - the empty Tomb, His triumph over death, opening unto us the life everlasting - that the martyrs of old, that the martyrs of our own times refused to deny the Christian faith even in the face of death: for faith in the Resurrection of Christ is stronger than the raging of tyrants, stronger than violent hatreds, stronger than death itself.
Today, then, as we, with John, think of that great multitude of Christian martyrs, which no one can count, from every nation, standing before the throne of God and the Risen Christ, may we grasp afresh the fundamental unity of all Christians which they embody; may we be faithful in prayer for our fellow Christians across the globe who experience persecution today; and may we, with the martyrs, rejoice in the message of Easter, the Resurrection of Christ, faithfully confessing, with them, that He - the Risen Lord - is our eternal hope.
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