Weeping and wailing tore through Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday six years ago when Islamic extremists walked into the evangelical Zion Church, two Catholic churches, and three hotels to carry out a series of suicide bombings. At least 253 people, including 50 children, perished in an instant. Thirty-one of the people killed were evangelical, and 171 were Catholic.
I was not in Sri Lanka at the time, but I was quickly informed of what had happened. The very next day, I learned that my cousin’s 12-year-old son was one of the children who had died in the blast at Zion Church.
One photo stands out to me among the stream of pictures of the decimated churches that circulated online: a blood-splattered statue of Jesus at St. Sebastian’s Church in Negombo, a city on the western coast of Sri Lanka. It is a disturbing image to behold, but it captures how Christians in Sri Lanka felt in the aftermath of this attack: Easter had become a reminder that the body of Christ has not stopped bleeding.
Easter is traditionally a day of great joy, a celebration of the victory of Christ over sin, death, and the evils that plague the world. But for many Sri Lankan Christians, it is also a day of mourning and remembrance—a day to honor the martyrs who were targeted and killed for their faith.
Remembering the martyrs is indispensable to the Christian story and also to Christian discipleship. From the early apostles to Polycarp (the bishop of Smyrna), from Perpetua (the second-century noblewoman) to American missionary Jim Elliot, gospel transmission and church growth have not been without bloodshed. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” as the saying inspired by early Christian apologist Tertullian goes.
Martyrs of the faith are neither accidents nor tragedies in the story of the church. Rather, they are honorable seeds planted in the ground in the hope of the Resurrection. They are the highest expressions of a life well lived for Christ, beckoning us to do the same. We forget them at our peril because they teach us how to live on this side of Easter: fearless in the face of death, unbound by worldly desires, holding firm to Christ’s teachings, and living in full expectation of a time when death no longer has the final say.
Ramesh Raju, a victim of the Zion Church bombing in Batticaloa on the eastern coast of Sri Lanka, understood this Easter-inspired life better than anyone. He died heroically, preventing one of the bombers from entering the church, which could have drastically increased the number of casualties.
In February, I spoke with his wife, Chrishanthini, about the trauma she had experienced in losing her husband and being left to care for their two children on her own. Chrishanthini’s voice carried a surprising note of hope and confidence alongside an obvious sense of sorrow.
For several months before the bombings occurred, her pastor had been teaching the church about Christian suffering and martyrdom. Ramesh would come home after every sermon feeling overwhelmed with conviction and say, “Chrishanthini, we should not be living for the world! We should be living for Christ and be willing to even die for his sake.” The Rajus started praying that they would be counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ as a family.
After Ramesh’s shocking death, I wondered if Chrishanthini still felt this way or if she was angry and disappointed with God. As Hindu converts to Christianity, did her family feel that they had made a poor exchange? When I asked her this, she let out a soft laugh and quoted Philippians 1:29: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.”
In my conversation with Chrishanthini, it became clear that her family and church never thought that following Christ guaranteed a life of material blessings, perfect health, and uninterrupted happiness. For Chrishanthini, all believers must be prepared to face suffering—including the possibility of martyrdom—when they decide to follow Christ.
Chrishanthini recalled her pastor’s words on 2 Timothy 2:11–12 at a Bible study on March 21, 2019, which was also Ramesh’s birthday. That day, her pastor said in a sermon illustration that if Ramesh and a few others died for Christ, they would reap their reward in glory. Exactly one month later, Ramesh died.
Last year, the Catholic church in Sri Lanka began a process with the Vatican to honor and formally remember the victims of the bombings at St. Anthony’s Shrine and St. Sebastian’s Church as “heroes of the faith.” If this process is completed, the Catholics who were killed in the bombings will be recognized as saints, worthy of public veneration.
While Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians have a formal process of canonization to remember and honor their martyrs, evangelicals have been slow to develop a formal process of our own. This is because we want to avoid ascribing to the martyrs any special powers or access to God. Many evangelicals are active in advocacy groups for religious freedom in persecuted countries and support mission organizations and churches whose members have been martyred, yet I have found little reflection in evangelical circles on the role of martyrdom in preserving “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude v. 3, NET).
There is no doubt that honoring, remembering, and meditating on the lives of the martyrs has a profound impact on our lives. Evangelicals can affirm a relationship with the martyrs through memory while rejecting any notion of a mystical connection.
Zion Church, a charismatic evangelical congregation, has taken concrete measures to remember its martyrs. The names and faces of the 31 worshipers who were murdered that Easter are displayed on a wall inside the sanctuary, Chrishanthini said. The martyrs’ names are also inscribed on a monument within a newly constructed prayer garden. Ramesh, along with the others who died on the most holy day in the Christian calendar, has become a powerful illustration of Christlike courage in sermons and prayers at the church.
Remembering the lives and examples of martyrs like Ramesh is important not only for Zion Church but also for other evangelical congregations in Sri Lanka to incorporate into regular rhythms of church life. We can do this by:
- Including martyrs in our prayers of thanksgiving
- Displaying pictures of them along with short descriptions of their stories in our church hallways
- Setting aside days to remember individual martyrs relevant to our local contexts, like martyred pastor Lionel Jayasinghe (in addition to the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church)
- Studying historical and contemporary martyrs in Sunday schools, youth groups, and discipleship programs
- Encouraging artistic and musical expressions—such as songs, poetry, and plays—that honor the witness of Christian martyrs
- Engaging in acts of service or outreach in honor of martyrs, demonstrating the impact of their witness in tangible ways
These practices of remembrance are integral to the preservation of the carefully cultivated witness of Sri Lanka’s church, one of endurance and resilience during the 30-year civil war that ended in 2009, frequent persecution of Christians, the devastating 2004 tsunami, and the 2019 Easter bombings.
To remember martyrs is to remember Christ, who still bleeds in the affliction of his body and bride, the church. When Saul encounters the Lord on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, he asks, “Who are you, Lord?” The answer he receives emphasizes Christ’s solidarity with the suffering church: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (v. 5).
In saying that he was persecuted by Saul, Jesus identified with his faithful followers who dare to put their trust in him, even at great cost to their lives. Saul became a witness to the resurrected Christ that day. As the apostle Paul, he would eventually profess, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21). This astounding declaration is the story of many who have encountered the risen Christ from the inception of the church. This is the story the Sri Lankan martyrs of the faith embody—one that we bring to life when we remember them on Easter, year after year.
Easter is rightly celebrated as Christ’s greatest achievement for those in Christ. But the Resurrection does not overshadow the Crucifixion. Taking up our crosses, denying ourselves, and following Christ are not pre-Easter stipulations that went away after Christ’s resurrection. Rather, Easter is a double vindication of Good Friday: It affirms both the finished work of the atonement and the example of Christ’s human life of surrender and obedience to the Father, even to the point of death on a cross (Phil. 2:8).
The church’s collective memory of martyrs serves as a stark reminder that in God’s economy, there is great strength in apparent weakness. Just as Christ’s humiliation and death appeared to have been the end of a great revolutionary movement, martyrdom and Christian suffering can appear unnecessary and ineffective. But Easter and the New Testament church tell a different story, one of triumph and perseverance despite opposition, persecution, and even death.
Toward the end of our phone call, Chrishanthini said she felt certain that Ramesh would receive the high reward of a glorious resurrection. This hope is what keeps her going each day as she serves at Zion Church as a Sunday school teacher, leads prayer meetings, and tells others about her husband’s sacrifice and the great joy of following Christ.
While Chrishanthini has lost her husband and her children have lost their father, they do not mourn as those without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). In the weeks following Ramesh’s death, their 14-year-old daughter, Rukshika, came to Chrishanthini with these words: “Amma, I would be honored if the Lord also calls me to be a martyr like Appa.”
Nathanael Somanathan is a pastor and lecturer at Colombo Theological Seminary in Sri Lanka. He is currently completing his PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK.
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