Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan lives.”
NL Daily Devotion for Wednesday, July 30, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
What should we be holding fast to? In this letter, it’s to Jesus’ name. But what does that mean? At the time, it was a matter of identity and steadfastness. Christians were persecuted on and off at the beginning, and some of the earliest folks made it a point of honor to be martyred, seeing it as dying along with Jesus. Most Christians were just happy to gather on Sundays, eat and drink the communion meal, pray, sing, and teach one another about how to follow in the Way of Jesus. Holding fast to Jesus’ name meant being willing to follow in that Way even when confronted with harassment, violence, even death. In the millennia since, with Christianity being the religion of empire and considered normative across Europe, the U.S. and beyond, this text seems to have been reinterpreted. Instead of declaring a commitment to living a life of compassion, radical welcome, contentment with little, and active work for justice on behalf of the marginalized, “holding fast to Jesus’ name” has become a declaration of in-group belonging that “others” anyone who disagrees with one specific interpretation of the Bible. And I don’t buy it.
For me, “holding fast to Jesus’ name” means committing myself to live (to the best of my ability, which often fails me) the way Jesus lived, which is not the same as being part of some elite club of “good people” or “saved people.” It’s messy. Active. Painful. Astonishingly beautiful. And ultimately not about me. And especially now, when so many are being persecuted for having brown skin or non-Christian beliefs or not speaking English or not fitting into a heteronormative box, I need to hold fast to Jesus name and declare at the top of my lungs that all these are precious to him just as they are, and deserving of the same compassion and love that Jesus showed to others.
What does it mean to me to “hold fast to Jesus’ name?”
