What does it mean to live here in the light of there?
Solomon states in the book of Ecclesiastes that “God has set eternity in our hearts” (3:10-11). Living in the light of eternity enables us to make choices and commit ourselves to the kind of actions that dramatically affect every part of our lives.
Such a choice was required of a woman named Vibia Perpetua who lived in the second century A.D. She had a husband and a newborn baby. They were new Christians, and were members in the struggling, persecuted church in North Africa.
Linda Holland tells Vibia’s story in her book, “Alabaster Doves”:
The day came when people moved from the center of the street in Carthage to make way for a procession of Roman legionnaires. The lead Roman soldier unrolled a scroll and read it to the people who had gathered. The message denounced those who were Christians because they would not sacrifice to the emperor. Wherever they were to be found they were to be taken, held, and brought before the consul.
Meanwhile, outside the town, Vibia Perpetua and her husband had just become new members of their church. She was 22 years old and could not have known at the time that her commitment would demand of her the ultimate test.
The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus had issued an edict prohibiting Jews and Christians alike from converting or making converts. Roman procurator Hilarianus faithfully and fanatically attended to the execution of this edict.
The followers of Jesus Christ had entered the martyr age. Men, women, and children were torn from their homes, judged to be dangerous citizens, and condemned to die. Spies lurked in neighborhoods who reported the names of those who became followers of Jesus Christ. Among those who were reported to have become Christians were Vibia Perpetua, her husband, and several of her friends.
Vivia’s father came to the prison again and again to plead with her. He did not want his daughter to die. With tears in his eyes, he kissed her hands and fell at her feet, asking her to recant her faith. For this he was taken out and beaten. Vibia watched as her husband denied his faith, placed the lighted sacrificial incense on the altar to the emperor, and ran away.
The day came when Vibia and other Christians were led before Hilarianus, Procurator of Carthage. “Are you a Christian?” Hilarianus demanded.
“I am,” Vibia answered. “I cannot forsake my faith for freedom. I will not do it. For Christ is my life, and death to me is gain.” Hilarianus signaled the executioners, who herded Vibia and her friends to the entrance of the arena to await their turn for execution.
Vibia and her friends met their deaths on a March day in A.D. 203 and stepped into the loving arms of Jesus. The blood and tears of these dedicated early Christians were not wasted, though. They moistened the ground into which new seed would fall and produce a harvest for Christ’s Kingdom. They knew what it meant to live here in the light of there.
Across the continent of Africa today Christians are being persecuted and killed. All of the children in a Nigerian Christian school were captured and taken prisoner a few years ago and faced the likelihood of death. I wondered if any of those children were descendants of individuals who had been won to Christ by Southern Baptist missionaries Carlyle and Rosa Powell.
In the 1960’s Carlyle and Rosa had completed their years of ministry as Southern Baptist missionaries in Nigeria and returned to Warsaw in Duplin County where they had been raised, and where members of their family still lived. The Powells again became members of the Warsaw Baptist Church. It was my joy and privilege to serve as their pastor during their last years on earth. Their lives on earth came to an end, and they moved from “here” to “there” – which is often called “that city, eternal, in the heavens, not made by hands.”
If you were ever faced with the decision to either deny your faith in Christ or face persecution and death, what would your answer be?
The Paper Pulpit 
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