Obviously Calvary was past, a glorious completed victory by which our sins are forever thrown into the sea of God's great forgetfulness. (And that's another oxymoron, God being forgetful...) So what could still have been lacking? What is lacking is the persons who will fill up the appointed measure of suffering through which Christ now travels in His people who follow Him to the cross. The Gospel Jesus died for is the same which we must spread at any risk. Paul filled up his part of the measure and passed the baton on to the next generations.

This apostle, you will note, never, to our knowledge, prayed for the ruin of Rome. Only, "remember the prisoners" of Rome. Remember me, a prisoner of Christ, he said. I have often prayed for the demise of the North Korean government, and of course, it shall come, as Rome's downfall slowly has come, at least for awhile. But is it the best prayer? If God's people are called to suffer with Jesus, dare we pray away the means of that suffering?

I speak brashly, perhaps even foolishly. I do not wish the tortures of men like Kim Jong-il to be inflicted on me or my brothers. But is it not to this that He calls us anyway? When truth comes from our lips, any truth, but especially the truth of the resurrected crucified Christ, are we not caught in its web and eventually brought down by wicked men?

Jesus spoke the truth of Who He was. He spoke many other truths, and each strand of truth bound Him closer to death. Stephen's web was of a similar quality. The call is for more truth in a deceived generation. But people will eventually get rid of one who keeps speaking eternal truth. We must spin the web well, though it brings us to our end.

Do we love truth? Do we love to proclaim it? Do we embrace the cross it shall bring to us and determine to die on it? Or do we center our prayers for the persecuted (which may be us some day) on getting out of trouble, and avoiding pain?

You may have read or seen Shawshank Redemption, the story of the innocent man who was put away for life. The narrator suggests that prisoners at first hate the wall that separates them from the rest of the world, then come to accept it... then need it.

That can be a horrible picture of how people are enslaved by sin. It could also serve as a parable of the progress of a disciple. Are we conditioning ourselves to live behind walls, as though we were bound with the suffering Christians? Do we hate the wall, are we making plans to stay far from the wall, maybe throw a few dollars to ministries "brave enough" to go there. But, say we, this is not my ministry. I'm called to live, to save my life, to hold on to my stuff....

Is there one among us who actually needs the wall? Savors it with every breath, knowing that to be Christ's prisoner is to be free indeed? That to be Christ's prisoner is to reap a reward unimaginable here?