The year was 1680. King Charles II of Spain, his court, and the cream of Madrid society were gathered that hot day in June to bear witness to one of the many trials of faith that occurred during the 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition. That particular day, Inquisitor General Diego Sarmiento de Valladares had gathered the many inmates held in different inquisitorial courts of the region and decided to showcase the zeal of the Crown in the defense of the faith in carrying out the pronouncements and executions of sentences.
The plaza was transformed into a splendid outdoor courtroom. Royal tapestries woven with religious symbolism hung from the plaza walls. Ornamental seating in the stands for the ecclesiastical authorities, relatives of the Holy Office, commissioners and notaries of the court were all filled. It was standing room only. Earlier, 250 soldiers in their ceremonial finery had collected large bundles of firewood to be used in the public burner just outside the Gate of Fuencarral. Now the soldiers stood in lines, ready to enforce decorum, awaiting their next task.
The 120 prisoners, up at 3am to be dressed in their carefully marked gowns to signify their respective crimes, were given a light breakfast in preparation for the holy procession and ceremony of the long day ahead. The prisoners represented a variety of threats to the True Faith. Some were former Jew and Muslim converts that had lapsed, others were bigamists, adulterers, Protestants, Anglicans, Freemasons, forgers, witches and sodomites. Some had confessed and were allowed to be strangled before their bodies were burned. Some were to only receive flogging, or a life spent rowing a galley in one of the many wars, others sentenced to burn were spiteful, impatient, and defiant. But first, there was to be a Mass. (facts chronicled by Joseph del Olmo and published in that same year.)
The Accuser of the Brethren drapes himself in theater and pageantry, using the very Law brought down from heaven to drive us into hopelessness and despair. We are guilty. We stand in chains facing the holy courts of justice, hearing the list of heresies and crimes we have committed. We are the transgressors of the law. Our punishment is death.
But we have an Advocate. “And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by His grace through redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3: 22-24). We have a worthy Redeemer who has paid the price for our crimes. We are to go free because of His merciful love towards us. However, Jesus says, “The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” (John. 12:48).
It is Jesus Christ who has stood before the court in our place, was flogged, humiliated and killed. He paid our ransom. Our future is secure. “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, “The victory and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah have now come. These things have come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown out. He is the one who accused them day and night before our God” (Rev. 12:10).
Our desire at IMM is to see the advocate, Jesus Christ, on every screen. That can be a very large screen (we future-proof by shooting in the highest resolution our cameras will allow), or a small screen. In the last few months, one of our projects was to translate the stories of the People Who Met Jesus into Dari for Afghanistan. It was a challenge IMM has met before - working with a people group who would be brought before a religious court in their country and charged with Apostasy. In some cases, the pageantry of a religious trial would be absent, but a swift execution would still be carried out.
The story of Perpetua, who was killed in an arena for being a Christian, is part of our Heritage series, which is still being translated into many languages. One of the completed languages is Farsi, which is spoken in Iran. A dear friend of IMM, a Christian from Iran, spent time in our studio, fearless, in front of a camera, in order to get the Good News of Jesus to her country. She was no longer afraid for her life, as she had already spent long months in solitary confinement in Tehran for her apostasy. Our broadcast partners into the areas of Iran will reach into millions of homes via satellite.
Our target audience at IMM are those being accused by the enemy of their souls. They may not know that Jesus Christ has paid their price in full. We tell them this Good News, so they may have hope and joy, as they face trials in this fallen world. And despite the headlines, know that God’s Kingdom is growing daily as the gospel is proclaimed. “Then the Lord answered me: ‘Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed” (Habakkuk 2:2-3).