Over my dead body

As some of you will know, I really like Spooks, and last night was the first of this year's new series. It was a pretty good episode.

Following the death of Ros (one of the agents) in a hotel explosion last series, the Section D team are coming to terms with her loss, and moving on to their next case. The mission is to stop a Somalian Al Quaeda terrorist planning an attack on London, which is being orchestrated by an unknown computer whizz called "Talwar" (just in case you're interested, a Talwar is an Indian curved sword, ironically associated with Sikhism). The team realise that their only hope of stopping the attack is to stop Talwar, but when they reach the address they have pulled, they find that Talwar, is in fact a teenage girl. Lucas and Beth hold the girl at gun-point, telling her to shut the attack down. She doesn't budge, and Beth realises that if they kill her, it would make her a martyr, so they take her mother hostage instead, now screaming at her to shut it down. Still, she does not budge. Whilst watching this, I found myself thinking "What on earth are you doing?! He's about to put a bullet through your mother's brain, just shut the attack down!" And it was only today that I got it...

Just to be clear, I'm a Christian, I'm not an extremist and I ABSOLUTELY think that terrorism is completely wrong. But that girl, even though it was severely misconstrued, had such great faith in what she believed to be right, that she was prepared to sacrifice her life, and the lives of the ones she most loved for it.

So I've been forced to ask myself: could I make that kind of sacrifice for what I believe? Jesus certainly makes it clear what our answer should be:

Matthew 10:32"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn:
'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'
37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (NIV)

That's pretty strong stuff. The trouble is, it's easy to say that we'd be prepared to make that kind of sacrifice; living in an age of padded pews, worship services carefully tailored to the tastes of the "consumer", and church cafes (or Smoothie Bars, if you watched "Rev"!). The truth is, it's never been easier to be a Christian, and not have to make any kind of real sacrifice; to not have to experience true pain (unless of course, you count having to sit through endless dry sermons!).

In that episode of Spooks, Harry (the Section D boss) is feeling pretty reflective following Ros' death. At the funeral, the realisation hits him that: “Ros gave everything to this country, and six people came to say goodbye to her. Six people Ruth. I don’t want that for myself. And I don’t want that for you.” He realises that the path he's chosen is one of great self-sacrifice, for hardly any recognition or reward, and so he hands in his resignation. He doesn't think he can take it, if that's all that waits for him in the end.

It reminded me a bit of James and John, when they go to Jesus and say “We’ll follow you anywhere, Jesus; just make sure that at the end of the road there’s a cabinet post, or an ambassadorship, or a favored seat at the heavenly banquet.” But Jesus gives them an answer they don’t want to hear: “It’s not up to me who gets the choice appointments, boys. But I can promise you this: Follow me, and you’ll certainly share my suffering. Follow me, and you'll learn what sacrifice is all about.” (In case you didn't guess, that was paraphrasing... you can find the proper version in Mark 10:35-45)

At the end of the episode, Ruth comes to Harry and explains that they have “forfeited the chance for that sort of life”: a life of normality, and safety, and comfort.

As followers of Christ, we've forfeited the chance for that sort of life too. We're called to sacrifice gladly, be it personally, monetarily, or literally, our very lives, with no expectation of reward.

Harry eventually decides to retract his resignation. I like to think that it's because he realised, even though his job is hard, full of pain and difficult sacrifice, and even though he receives no reward, or recognition for what he does, the sacrifice he makes is worth it, for the greater cause. I pray that God will help me come to that same conclusion.