Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

This is now news that is getting a little dated, but deserves to be highlighted. Read this PDF, a letter from the Protestant Church in Smyrna, Turkey. It details the exceptional events surrounding the torture and murder of three Christians in Turkey. This isn’t your average martyrdom, people.

Click here for the grisly details of how they were tortured. I won’t reprint them in case that is something you just don’t want to contemplate.

The cool part of this story is found at the end of the letter:

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Geske in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Geske has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”

This really is the message of Jesus to the world - a love for your neighbour, even your enemy, that surpasses what most humans can understand. We see it even now in Vancouver, with the Robert Pickton trial and its grisly details. We wonder how anyone could forgive him for his mass-murdering spree. I remember when the school shootings in Taber, AB happened, the father of one of the children killed was a pastor. When he and his wife publicly forgave the killer, it made national headlines. Perhaps Canada and Turkey are not so different in terms of the noteworthiness of, and rarity of mercy and forgiveness of your enemy.