A Letter to Smyrna: Suffering

Good morning, everyone. It's good to see you. It's a beautiful Sunday.

If we haven't met, my name is Kevin. I'm one of the pastors here.

If we haven't met, come say hi to me after the service. I would love to connect with you.

It's a real joy to be here with you this morning and to continue preaching on our Lenten series.

We're looking at the seven letters to the seven churches, which is the very beginning of Revelation.

And this will be a shorter series and then we'll do a deeper dive into Revelation through sometime in July probably.

And we're going to be looking at the letter, the second letter this morning, the letter to the church in Smyrna.

And in one way or another, each of these letters is about dispelling the false idea that it's possible to be a casual Christian.

The church is the bride of Christ and Jesus is the bride room who desires his bride to be passionate about following him.

He desires a passionate bride, a bride who's all in, who's willing to live for him and, as we'll see, is willing to die for him.

And there's really just one main theme that dominates this letter to Smyrna.

It's very short, but it packs a big punch.

And that theme is suffering, suffering persecution.

As Tommy told us last week, the book of Revelation is aimed not so much at our head or our hearts, but at our imagination.

In one way or another, it seeks to jolt us out of a spiritual sleepiness, to wake us up from spiritual stupor.

And I think the book helps us to reframe what the Christian life is all about.

It helps us to ask the question and to answer the question, what does following Jesus in this world really look like?

What's required of us if we decide to follow Jesus?

What does it cost to follow Christ?

I think we spend a lot of time, and rightly so, talking about how we need to think about Jesus and the world.

So developing proper doctrine.

And we spend a lot of time talking about what it looks like to live for Christ.

So living lives in line with the scriptures.

But we probably don't spend enough time talking about the fact that to follow Jesus means that you're going to live a life that's marked by suffering.

And so that's what we're going to talk about this morning.

It's a pretty intense topic, but one that is important to explore.

And I was thinking, you know, if this is somebody's first Sunday, you know, it could be kind of a...

Almost like I want to apologize, in a way, for talking about it.

But at the same time, if you're here and you're looking to follow Jesus, you kind of need to know what you're getting into.

So I thought maybe we should have a warning label if we invite people to follow Jesus that just has a big sign that says,

Danger. This way leads to death.

And of course, right after that, in like bold parentheses, and through death to the resurrection, to eternal life.

So that's what we're going to be talking about this morning.

And the idea of letting people know what they're signing up for reminds me of this story of a pastor.

He is a Romanian pastor.

And this is a story about how he would prepare youths.

I don't know how old they were for confirmation.

The pastor's name is Richard Wurmbrand.

Some of you may have heard of him.

He's sort of like the Romanian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, if you will.

He was imprisoned and he was tortured by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

He spent 14 years, many of those years, in solitary confinement.

And he wasn't killed by the Romanians, fortunately.

He escaped.

He was in prison several times.

But he went on to write many books and to lead and equip the persecuted church.

And in one book called Preparing the Underground Church,

it's sort of a manual for Christians in places where they're persecuted.

He writes this about how he prepared a group of children for,

I imagine they're teenagers, he doesn't say.

Maybe they're children.

For confirmation.

He writes this.

I remember my last confirmation class before going to prison.

I took a group of 10 to 15 boys and girls on a Sunday morning,

not to a church, but to the zoo.

Before the cage of lions, I told them,

Your forefathers in faith were thrown before such wild beasts for their faith.

Know also that you will have to suffer.

You will not be thrown before lions,

but you will have to do with men who would be much worse than lions.

Decide here and now if you wish to pledge allegiance to Christ.

And he writes that they had tears in their eyes when they said yes.

Now, I'm not saying that we should do that this summer when Jane's away,

take the kids to the zoo.

I'm also saying we shouldn't do that.

Something to think about.

But the point of this story is,

the Christian life is, it's not easy and it's not for the faint of heart.

And so often I think we become lax in what it means to follow Christ.

It actually requires a great deal of courage in the face of fear.

And the call to be a Christian is not the call to be a hero.

It's the call to be a saint, someone who's faithful unto death.

And so this morning I want to look at our passage, Revelation 2, 8 through 11,

to help equip us for that journey.

And so there are three things that I think this passage teaches us.

First, it teaches us what we can expect in the journey of following Christ.

It teaches us what we are promised to make it through that journey.

And then I want to talk a little bit about how we can prepare for this journey.

So let's pray.

Father, we are reminded that the call to follow you is the call to take up our cross daily

and to follow you.

Lord, I'm reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's words.

When Christ calls us, he bids us come and die.

I pray that you would equip us by your spirit that we would be not cowardly Christians,

but that we would be faithful and courageous Christians,

willing to suffer with Christ in order that we might be glorified with him.

And so I pray for our time brief, though it may be this morning,

that you would speak to each one of us in the ways that we need to hear.

I pray these things in Christ's name.

Amen.

Okay, so first, what can we expect?

So in a word, we can expect persecution.

We can expect to suffer because of our allegiance to Jesus Christ.

So I want to give you a little background on Smyrna,

the city that this letter is written to.

Smyrna was a seaport.

It's about 35 miles north of Ephesus.

That's the church that Tommy talked to us about last week.

So 35 miles north in a seaport on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

And Smyrna was fiercely loyal to Rome and to Caesar.

The city earned the right to be the center of emperor worship in Asia Minor,

which is where all of these cities are, which is in modern-day Turkey.

One thing you need to know about the imperial cult, the worship of Caesar,

is that the imperial cult was baked into basically every aspect of life in Rome

or Roman colonies in Asia Minor.

Really, the only way to economic prosperity and to greater social standing

was by participating in the worship of the Roman gods and especially of Caesar.

And so if you were a Christian that found yourself in a Roman colony,

you would have to make a decision.

Is Caesar Lord or is Jesus?

Now the trouble is you can't really have a share in the city's public life

if you're not participating in the Roman religious life.

So that is a little bit troublesome if you're a Christian trying to be salt and light in the world.

And the greater trouble is you can't just really opt out without consequences.

If you refuse to participate, this refusal was viewed as a threat to Roman power

because you are considered an atheist and they thought that was very destabilizing.

You're viewed as disloyal and unpatriotic

and you are punished by not being allowed to participate economically in the marketplace.

So you would struggle financially.

But you could also be imprisoned.

You could be beaten.

You could be exiled.

And you could even be executed.

This is actually the reason why Socrates was executed.

If you read Plato's Apology, he was executed for being an atheist

because he didn't acknowledge the same gods as the Greeks.

So it was a pretty common thing for people to be imprisoned for

and to be punished for to be on the fringes of Roman society.

Another thing we need to know about Smyrna

is that there was a considerable Jewish colony in Smyrna.

In the early church, Jews were, it's called the Jewish Diaspora.

They were spread out all over the region.

And churches would plant and grow in the places where Jewish communities were.

Paul would go to those places and he would preach the gospel.

And oftentimes the early Christians were Jews who decided to follow Jesus.

And there was a great deal of hostility and tension and conflict for this reason.

If you decided to follow Jesus,

you are perceived as a traitor to your Jewish community and your background.

And so what we see in Smyrna,

this is the situation on the ground,

is that the Jews were slandering the Christians.

And the Jews knew that they didn't have the authority

to really do damage to the Christians themselves

because they were under Roman rule and Roman subjugation.

Only the Romans had authority to punish

and only they had the power to punish other people.

And so basically what the Jewish community would do to hurt the Christians

was they would basically out them to the Roman authorities

and say these people are Christians

and they're resisting the Roman religion

and they're destabilizing Roman society.

They're a threat.

And they knew if they did that,

that the Christians in Smyrna would be pushed outside of the marketplace

so they would suffer.

They would be in poverty.

And they might even be thrown into prison.

And they might even be killed.

We see something similar in Acts 17

just across the Aegean Sea in Thessalonica.

Paul was in the city

and there was a mob of angry Jews

that basically they outed Paul

and the other Christians to the authorities.

And they said that the Christians were turning the world upside down.

They were destabilizing the society.

They were destabilizing Roman power.

And the charge against them

was that they were acting against the decrees of Caesar

saying that there's another king, Jesus.

And so if Caesar hears that there's a group of people

who think there's another king,

they want to wipe those people out.

And this led to persecution.

One thing I want to note here is in verse 2-9

there's some really strong language

that John uses about the Jews.

He says the Jews are slandering Christians

and he calls their community a synagogue of Satan.

It's pretty intense language.

The word Satan means slanderer or accuser.

And I want to note

that I don't think John is being anti-Semitic here.

I think that what he's doing

is he's calling out the profound corruption

in the first century synagogue.

We see some of that corruption in our gospel lesson

where basically the Jews

Jews in the first century

didn't recognize Jesus for who he was

and they were actually in opposition to him.

And so what John is saying

is basically there are forces at work

in the first century synagogue

that are going against

and working against God's plans

and purposes in the world.

One other thing that I want to highlight

is that strong language like this

isn't reserved just for Jews alone

or it's not reserved or excluded

from being applied to Jesus' own followers.

I'm reminded of the passage

in the Gospels in Matthew and Mark

where Peter is opposing Jesus.

Jesus is saying,

I have to go to Jerusalem

and I have to die.

And Peter says,

like, absolutely not.

You're not going to do that.

And Jesus says these really strong words

to Peter, his right-hand man.

He says,

get behind me, Satan.

Right?

And the reason why he does that

is because at its core,

any opposition to the things of God

is demonic, is satanic.

And I think this explains

the otherwise just startling

and surprising and bizarre move

in verse 10

where John says,

you know,

the Jews are slandering you

and the devil is going to throw you into prison.

Like, how do we get from there to here?

John is identifying the real enemy.

In this situation.

Revelation,

so the book that we're studying

is called Revelation.

The Greek word is also translated as apocalypse

and it literally means an unveiling.

And Revelation is an unveiling.

It is a revealing of God's perspective

on what's going on

behind the scenes in human history.

And God reveals it to us

because it wouldn't otherwise be available

to our empirical reason.

You can't just observe what's going on

and see it.

God reveals it to us.

So certainly the Jews and Romans

are conspiring together

to persecute the church.

But it's all being orchestrated by the devil.

That's what John is telling us.

The ultimate adversary

and the opponent of God.

Essentially what's happening

is John is pulling back the curtain

so we can see what's going on

behind the scenes.

And this happens to be the case

with all opposition to the kingdom of God.

The real enemy and the real battle

is always a spiritual one.

This is what Paul writes

in Ephesians 6 verse 12.

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle

against flesh and blood

but against the rulers,

against the authorities,

against the cosmic powers

over this present darkness,

against the spiritual forces of evil

in the heavenly places.

You know, as I was thinking

about the sermon,

I was just reflecting on

how often do I think

about the cosmic powers?

How often am I really paying attention to

or actually thinking

that there's something else going on

besides what I can see and feel?

Really not that often,

if I'm honest.

This reminds me of the famous line

from Charles Baudelaire's short story,

the greatest trick of the devil

is to persuade the world

that he does not exist.

Are we persuaded that he does not exist?

The book of Revelation,

this passage in particular,

I think this morning

John is trying to wake us up.

He's trying to tell us

that the devil is real,

the devil is terrible,

and the devil wants nothing more

than to dismantle and destroy

our faith in Jesus Christ.

And if you think this is over the top,

I want you to consider this image

from the epistle of 1 Peter.

Peter writes to the church.

He uses this really powerful

and terrifying image

to describe the devil.

He writes this in 1 Peter 5.8,

Be sober-minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil,

prowls around like a roaring lion

seeking someone to devour.

That is terrifying, right?

I often, I don't think about that enough,

that like everywhere I'm walking,

the devil is sort of like hiding the grass,

waiting to pounce on me,

waiting to destroy me,

waiting to disrupt my faith in Jesus

in one way or another.

And I wonder how our lives would change

if we actually lived like that was true,

that the devil really was prowling around

trying to dismantle and destroy

our faith in Jesus Christ.

How would that change our prayer lives?

How would that change

how much we read the Bible?

How would that change

how much we rely on Jesus

to get us through?

So what can we expect?

As Christians,

we can expect opposition.

We can expect suffering and persecution.

We shouldn't seek it.

We shouldn't seek to be martyrs.

We shouldn't seek suffering.

But we shouldn't be surprised when it comes.

And the reality is,

it's not a matter of if,

but when.

So the second thing,

well, what are we promised?

If we can expect persecution,

what can we,

what are we promised?

And I'm going to highlight three promises

that we see in this passage

that ought to encourage us

to breathe courage into our hearts

so that we can make it through

and be faithful unto death.

The first promise

that we see in this passage

is that Jesus knows.

Jesus says in verse nine,

I know your tribulation

and your poverty

and your slander.

Jesus knows what we're going through.

He's aware of it.

It's not a secret to him.

He's not surprised by it.

He is aware.

And when Jesus says he knows,

I don't think he's just saying

that he has sort of like

a cognitive awareness.

He sees what's going on.

Like he's,

the ascended Christ

is at the right hand of the father

and he's just like spectating,

watching us suffer

at the hand of the Jews

and the Romans

and ultimately of the devil.

He's not just saying like,

I know that you're suffering cognitively.

And I don't think he's just saying,

you know,

I know what it's like to suffer,

where he's remembering

his earthly life,

dying at the hands of the Romans.

I think what he's saying

is he's currently experiencing

our suffering alongside with us.

He personally knows

he's experiencing it with us.

He is in it with us.

So why do I say that?

Well, I'm reminded of Acts 9

when Saul,

the chief persecutor of the church,

he was sort of enemy number one

of the early church,

overseeing the murder

of the first martyr, Stephen,

arresting the people

who were following Jesus.

He was on the Damascus road

and he gets interrupted

by the resurrected Jesus.

Jesus appears to him on the road.

He becomes blind

and he hears this voice

and it's the voice of Jesus

who says,

Saul, Saul,

why are you persecuting me?

He doesn't say,

why are you persecuting the church

that I care about?

He's saying,

why are you persecuting me?

Saul says,

who are you, Lord?

And Jesus says again,

I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

What this passage tells us

is that Jesus is in it with us.

He so identifies with the church

that when the church suffers,

Christ suffers.

And how is this possible?

Well, Jesus is with us

by his spirit.

We're not alone.

We're empowered by his spirit

and we can't make it through.

We can't endure the suffering

and the trials

and the persecution

unless we're relying on the spirit.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy

that God gave us

not a spirit of fear,

but a spirit of power

and of love

and of self-control.

And the way I interpret that

this morning is

power to endure suffering.

If we have the spirit,

we cannot endure suffering.

The spirit to love those

who persecute us

because they're not our main enemy.

The devil is.

And a spirit of self-control

to not abandon the faith.

The second promise

is in verse 10

and this is an encouraging one

that our suffering

will be temporary.

The tribulation

will not last forever.

Verse 10 says,

do not fear.

The devil is about to throw

some of you in prison

that you might be tested

and for 10 days

you will have tribulation.

Whenever you see

a number in Revelation,

it's symbolic.

There's a whole field

of theology

called numerology

that tries to understand

all the numbers.

I wouldn't claim

to know all the numbers.

There's some strange

and interesting theories

about it in Revelation.

But I think what's going on

in the 10 days,

it basically just means

it's going to be temporary.

There's an end to it.

And I think it's a clear allusion

to the book of Daniel

from the passage

that we read this morning.

As we read,

the situation in Daniel

is that Israel

was in exile in Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar

had conquered Israel.

And basically,

what the king of Babylon

was doing

was he called

a few of the elite Israelites

to come into Babylon

to be indoctrinated

into Babylonian culture

and to Babylonian education.

And this was basically

a form of soft power.

Nebuchadnezzar

was trying to subjugate

the people of Israel

and was using cultural forces

rather than military forces,

which is pretty effective.

And Daniel

was a faithful Israelite.

He was a faithful Jew.

And even though

he was living in exile,

he wasn't going to

compromise his faith.

He's a great model for us.

And so,

he went along

with the education,

but he refused

to go all in

whenever he was asked

to do something

that compromised his faith.

He always remained faithful.

And so,

he just would refuse

to eat the king's food

because he didn't want

to be defiled by it

because the food

wasn't kosher.

It wasn't in accordance

with the dietary restrictions.

And so,

basically,

he said,

I'm not going to do that.

And the guy

who was the eunuch

who was in charge

of the students

was a little worried

because he thought

if these students

become malnourished

and weak,

he's going to get in trouble

by the king.

And so,

Daniel basically says,

okay,

let's make a deal.

Let me go vegetarian

for 10 days.

I'm not going to eat

the king's food and wine.

And if I'm,

after 10 days,

you'll see how I am

and then you can make

a decision.

And what we read

in the passage

was after 10 days,

Daniel and his crew

were,

they're fatter,

they're happier,

and they were smarter

than the rest of their cohort.

After this test,

they were blessed

and they had favor

from the Lord, right?

And so,

the eunuch was like,

okay, fine,

you guys can do

whatever you want.

You're doing pretty well.

And so,

Daniel is a model for us

of taking a risk,

taking risks of faith

even when it costs.

But I think we need

to be careful

not to take

the Daniel analogy

too far.

Unlike Daniel,

Christians aren't

actually promised

to make it through alive.

The time of testing

will not be forever,

which is an encouragement,

but it might end

in death.

This makes me think

of Hebrews 11,

this great,

encouraging chapter

of basically

recounting

the honor roll

of faith

in the Old Testament.

All of the people,

our mothers and fathers

in the faith

are spiritual forebears

who had amazing

exploits of faith.

As the chapter goes on,

the author of Hebrews

says,

you know,

some of our forebears

in the faith

stopped the mouths

of lions.

Some even quenched

the power of fire,

referring clearly

to Daniel.

But then it goes on

to say,

yet others

didn't have quite

such a nice fate.

Others were tortured,

refusing to accept

release so that

they might rise again

to a better life.

Others were stoned,

they were sawn in two,

they were killed

with the sword.

They went about

in skins of sheep

and goats,

destitute,

afflicted,

mistreated,

and I love this line,

of whom the world

was not worthy,

wandering about

in deserts and mountains

and in dens

and caves of the earth.

You see,

the call of the Christian

is to trust the God

and to leave

the consequences to him

because we know,

and this is the third promise,

that if we endure

to the end,

we have the ultimate promise,

the ultimate reward awaits,

which is the resurrection.

Our passage describes

the resurrection

as the crown of life

and the conquering

of the second death.

Verse 210 says,

be faithful unto death

and I will give you

the crown of life.

This is referring

to the resurrection.

And then again,

it says,

the one who conquers

will not be hurt

by the second death.

What is the second death?

It's the last judgment.

So everyone is going to die

and John is telling us

that there's actually

something worse than death,

namely dying twice.

After,

when Jesus comes back,

he's going to judge

the living and the dead,

the thing that we say

when we recite

the Nicene Creed.

And those who are faithful

to Christ

will be raised

to resurrected life

and live with Jesus forever

and those who are not

will suffer the second death.

And this is why

the resurrection

is so important

because if we don't have

the resurrection,

if we don't have

this ultimate hope,

there's no reason

why we should be

willing to suffer.

We should hang on

to our life

as long as we possibly can.

So I've talked about

what we can expect

and what this passage

promises us,

how we can have

great consolation

in the midst of suffering.

Lastly,

I want to talk about

how we can prepare

for the test,

how we can prepare

for when the troubles come.

Now I know most of us,

maybe you're thinking,

look,

we live in America,

I'm probably not going

to be killed

for my faith.

That's probably true

but let's not be too,

let's not get too comfortable.

You know,

I was thinking about

20th century Germany.

Germany was,

right before World War II,

was sort of the pinnacle

of cultural progress

at the time

and things devolved

really quickly.

In a few years,

it went from sort of

the climax of European culture

to Hitler taking over

and the Holocaust

and Christians being

thrown into prison

and killed as well.

So things can turn

pretty quickly,

I think.

But right now,

I think our lives,

at least,

are safe.

And so we might not

be in danger

of physical death

but I do think

each one of us

faces a kind of death

in a way.

It's more social death

and economic death.

We might suffer

public shaming

or social ostracizing

or damage to our careers,

loss of opportunities

with our jobs

because of our faith.

And I think this is

where our tests are

and so this is what

I want to talk about

this morning.

And the question

I want to ask is,

are you being faithful

unto these kinds of deaths

because of your faith

in Jesus?

And so as we close,

I want to think about,

I want you to think about

the areas in your life

where you are most tempted

to hide the fact

that you are a Christian.

What are the tests

that you are facing?

Think about those spaces.

Maybe it's at work.

Maybe it's with your boss

or your coworkers

where if they knew

that you were a Christian

and what that meant,

that might do damage

to your career.

It might give you a ceiling

for how you could progress

in your job.

Maybe it's with your family.

Maybe it's with your parents

or your siblings

or an extended

distant relative.

What would they think of you

if they knew

how serious you were

about following Jesus?

Maybe it's the parents

at your kids' school.

What would they think of you

if they knew you went

to the Church of the Advent?

What would they think of you

if they knew

what you believed?

Maybe it's your neighborhood,

wherever it is.

I'm not going to name it for you.

I want you to think about it.

But think about those scenarios

in which you're most tempted

to bail on Jesus,

where you're most tempted

to be a closet Christian,

where it would just be

a lot easier

if people didn't know

what you actually believed.

This is probably your test.

And so the question

we need to ask ourselves

is how can we prepare

for these types of tests?

How can we be faithful

unto death?

I want to read another passage

from Richard Wormbrand's book,

Preparing for the Underground Church.

And I think it's really helpful.

He gives us some great advice.

He's somebody

who's had personal experience.

He suffered a great deal

and he endured the test.

He was faithful.

And so I think

he has a lot to teach us.

This is what he writes.

What shall we do

about these tortures?

Will we be able

to bear them?

We must prepare

for suffering

and we must start now.

It is too difficult

to prepare yourself for it

when the communists

have put you in prison.

We have to make

the preparation now

before we are imprisoned.

In prison you lose everything.

You are undressed

and given a prisoner suit.

No more nice furniture

or nice carpets

or nice curtains.

You do not have a wife anymore

and you do not have your children.

You do not have your library

and you never see a flower.

Nothing of what makes

life pleasant remains.

And he says this line

that's haunting to me at least.

Nobody resists,

that is,

nobody remains faithful to Christ

who has not renounced

the pleasures of life beforehand.

I think there's great wisdom

here from this amazing Christian man

who endured suffering

and torture

and imprisonment for Christ.

And two things about this passage

from his book stand out to me.

First is a sense of immediacy

and the second is the need

to sever the attachments

that we have to the world

right now.

And so,

as we're in this season of Lent

and we've talked about it before,

sort of low-hanging fruit

for a thing we can do immediately

and a thing that we can do

to sever our attachments

to the world

is fasting.

I know we've talked about it

quite a bit,

talked about it at Ash Wednesday,

but I'm just going to keep pushing it

because this is one of the main practices

and disciplines

that our tradition

has handed on to us

in their great wisdom.

Fasting is tailor-made,

tailor-fit

to this type of preparation.

And it's a practice

we can begin right away

and it helps to free us

from our dependence

and our love

for the things of the world.

You see,

when we fast,

we engage in these little acts

of self-renunciation.

We forego food and drink

and we practice disciplining

and renouncing

our bodily appetites,

resisting our bodily appetites.

And as we practice

this kind of suffering,

this kind of death,

we grow strong.

We develop our spiritual muscles

and we grow in our ability

to resist a number of things.

We become less attached to

and less dependent

on the comforts and cares

of this world.

One of the things

that I'm fasting from

this Advent,

in addition to food

on some days,

is alcohol.

And as I've done that,

I realized,

wow,

actually I had a,

you know,

like if I have a tough day

at work

for whatever reason,

one of the things

that I would be tempted

to go to

to bring myself comfort

was to have a glass of wine

or to drink a beer.

and as I fasted

through the season of Advent,

I realized,

man,

I actually had

an inappropriate dependence

on this thing.

I was attached

to these things.

I was finding

my comfort

and consolation

in something other than God

and I was exposed

in fasting.

And as it's been exposed,

I've brought that

to the Lord

and it's really grown

my faith quite a bit,

actually.

I've become less

attached to these things

and I've developed,

I think,

a strength of character

through it.

So rather than being

controlled by our

bodily appetites

and being overly dependent

on things other than God,

we develop a sense

of mastery and control

and we get a sense

of confidence.

And this confidence

and this resistance

is transformable

to other areas

of our lives.

We develop this sense

of character

and self-control

and confidence

to resist temptation,

to remain faithful

unto death.

And so this season

of Advent,

wrapping up here,

may we be a church

that practices

joyfully renouncing

the pleasures of life

now,

that we might be faithful

unto death

whenever the troubles come

and they will come

and so ultimately

receive the crown of life.

Let's pray.