Paul has no doubts about what will cause the persecutions and sufferings awaiting him in Jerusalem. He knows that he will have to endure all this for the name of Jesus, since the Jews had long been indignant at his preaching of freedom in Christ, beside which devotion to the Mosaic law ceased to be the most important matter. In addition, he associated openly with Gentiles, entered their homes, and spoke to them about salvation in Christ without requiring them to live according to the law.

Hatred of Paul in Jerusalem had reached such intensity that even the Jerusalem Christians who continued to observe the law treated him with distrust and suspicion. Yet Paul not only declares his readiness to die for Christ; he also shows us a most important example of evangelical peacemaking. For the sake of peace among Christians and Jews he is ready to submit to the law, complete the required days of purification according to the law, and offer sacrifice in the Temple. Truly, in our age of indifference on the part of some and fanaticism on the part of others, this example of faithfulness to Christ, even unto death, is extremely important for us, and at the same time an example of love for brothers by blood and by spirit, and of consent to the existence of other patterns of life and religion.

The Christian history knows many examples of martyrdoms. It can seem at first sight that Christians are not original in this regard: the martyrdom for an idea or for convictions is known to many. And there is all the same an essential difference between the martyrdom of the Christian and of any other one. It is necessary to be a hero to suffer or, even give his life for an idea or for convictions. Poverty is necessary in order to suffer and even give his life for Christ. The same biblical or evangelic poverty, about which had already spoken Isaiah of Jerusalem, but which also mentions Jesus in the sermon on the Mountain, proclaiming the bliss of the poor. It is not of course about the material poverty, although in itself, it can’t be of course an obstacle neither to the martyrdom, nor to confession. It is about the spiritual state, which is indicated in the biblical books by this word.

Of this state that puts hope only on God and on none more or on nothing more. And the understanding of this simple fact that in the fallen world there is not and can’t be a reliable support for man, even if something seems to be such. Actually, only such a relation to the world makes man a real poor: because having nothing and wishing fervently to obtain what you do not have, you will not become a poor man in the biblical sense. And Christianity can be considered as a perfect expression and realization of this biblical poverty: because Christianity is the life in the Kingdom and according to the laws of the Kingdom, and not according to the laws of the fallen world.

But it is possible to live according to the laws of the Kingdom in the fallen world only by refusing completely inside any attempts to retain at least a part of what this fallen world calls life. Indeed, the Kingdom occupies entirely the living space of man, without rest. And the martyrdom turns out for the inhabitant of the Kingdom not the loss of life for an idea, as for the inhabitant of the fallen world, but the preservation of that fullness of the life of the Kingdom, for which it is not regrettable parting with what this world calls life.

It is difficult and painful to part from his. It is not regrettable parting with what is strange. The more man considers this fallen world as his, the more it is difficult to part from it. The poor has nothing to lose: because he gave everything to God, he has nothing in the genuine sense of the word his. And the inhabitant of the Kingdom by his life is not at all connected to the fallen world, although he dwells there, testifying of the Kingdom. And he has nothing which would hold him in this world.

Paul’s journey to Jerusalem is described by someone who took part in it. The word “we” appears ever more often in the text, making this direct testimony to the repeated prophecies addressed to Paul all the more significant: they continually confirmed that new persecutions awaited him. Paul accepts the prophetic warnings without changing his course; his actions reveal a deliberate choice.

It may seem that Paul has resigned himself to circumstances and refuses to resist the inevitable, but his resolve reveals the steadfastness of a fighter advancing toward an unavoidable battle. This is not fatalism or submission to inexorable fate, but trust in God, who does not abandon us in trials and enables us, even in difficult circumstances, to remain in accord with His will and fulfill it. Imitating Christ, Paul is ready, like Him, to undergo suffering and death. At this point the word “imitation” itself begins to sound inadequate...