With a smile. For four very good reasons.
First, it frustrates the heck out of your persecutors. Fear is their only weapon and they become very afraid indeed when it doesn’t work. When we were children we were told to respond to our tormentors, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” It’s the same principle, though in this context we might respond, “Sticks and stones do break my bones but the Lord will ne’er desert me.” When we are able to withstand what our persecutors know they could not withstand, we communicate to them that we have something more important and more powerful in our life than they could imagine. This is one of the reasons that the blood of the martyrs in the seed of the church.
Second, it throws them off kilter. They have a script they imagine we will take part in. They inflict pain, whether social, financial or physical. We will squeal for relief. They will up the ante and we will sell out everything we hold dear. What though if the persecutors snuck into our homes in the middle of the night and took from us our presents, and trees, our hanging wreaths, our fluflingers, dazzlemaffins and our roast beast, and we still gather in a circle and sing for joy? Then what will they do? How can they respond when they discover our treasure is well beyond their reach?
Third, it is a deep honor and an effective means of grace. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, gives us a list of callings, matched with a list of blessings, the beatitudes. At the end, however, He asserts twice that we are blessed when we are persecuted for His name’s sake. Who wouldn’t want that honor? Better still, the reality of the hardship (and smiling in the face of persecution doesn’t mean persecution isn’t hard) is good for what ails us, our remaining sin. As the song reminds us,
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”
Fourth, and most important of all, we smile because it brings honor to our Lord. We are His bride, called to be a reflection of His glory. He went as a lamb unto the slaughter, opening not His mouth. When we follow in those footsteps we not only show what He is, we show what He is making us to be. We demonstrate to the watching world that He is altogether worthy, and altogether trustworthy. The angels will praise Him. The souls of just men made perfect will praise Him. The saints who have no yet entered their rest will praise Him. And even the goats, however reluctantly, will praise Him. We don’t smile from vainglory. We smile for His glory.
Let us start while we are merely in the social stage, mocked by the broader culture for our convictions. And may we keep on smiling all the way through.