Everyone Will Hate You

Mark 13:13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

We know what this looks like, don’t we! If you wear a certain red hat in the United States, then you become the object of attack. All over a red hat! If people don’t like red, do they also want to go after red crayons?

Obviously it is not the red that bothers people, it is what the red hat stands for and against. It is the person and the policies behind the hat that get people mad. It is the continuous stream of attack on the red hat that make the red hat man so hated by his opponents.

Now, I make light of the red hat incidents, but I haven’t had my red hat stolen and I haven’t been verbally assaulted because of my red hat. (Just for the record, I don’t have a red hat.) But the association with the man can get anyone of us in trouble. We get put in the hot seat when we associate with him and his movement.

This is the kind of thing Jesus was talking about when He spoke in these verses. He predicts that when the end times come, people who are associated with Him will undergo persecution. They will be on the receiving end of the attacks.

We can see this ‘guilt by association’ happening around the world and down through the ages. Christians have been attacked, and misguided Christians have also been the attackers, much to their shame. Their association with Jesus and the message He taught has gotten countless people in trouble.

Right now in China and many Muslim majority countries around the world, Christians are convenient targets. They take the brunt of abuse that should be directed other places. They get blamed for the ills of society and are punished or ‘reeducated’ by the State.

But if we are truly following Jesus, then we should also be a target. Jesus Himself was a target. He continued to say things that confronted the religious and societal leaders of His day. He didn’t like hypocrisy in any of its forms. He was willing to point it out.

We should expect our families to turn against us if we are Believers and they are not. They won’t understand us, any more than non-red hat people understand red hat people. Persecution and misunderstanding logically follow from our relationship with Him. We point out by our lives and our words the failure of the world’s system to meet the deepest needs of the human soul.

So have you hidden your red hat? How about your Jesus hat? Do you willingly and freely, by both life and words, show people you are associated with Him? Or do you ‘turn it down a notch’ when certain people come around? 

But there is hope in this verse. If we hold firm to the end, then we get the rewards. It is not the person who starts the race who wins. It is the one who makes it all the way to the finish line. Are you still in the race?