Lent Day Six:  Alexsei A. Navalny

February 19, 2024 Photo credit:  Andrew Lubimov/Associated Press

“If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them.  And if necessary, make some sacrifices.” Alexsei A. Navalny

Disclaimer:  This quotation is not one that I included on the notecards that I made for my daughter at Christmas, nor is it one that I keep taped to my desk, on my mirror, or scribbled on a Post It note.  These are the words of an imprisoned 47-year-old man who was murdered last week by Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime because he dared to speak out against Putin, because he held firm beliefs about justice, because he loved his country and hated corruption.  Several years ago, Alexsei Navalny was poisoned for his activism and almost died.  He came back to Russia, knowing he would be imprisoned, because he had no choice.

The entire quotation reads:  “I don’t want to give up either my country or my beliefs.  I cannot betray either the first or the second.  If your beliefs are worth something, you must be willing to stand up for them.  And if necessary, make some sacrifices.”  His words and actions remind me of the martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor involved in a failed attempt to remove Hitler, hanged (age 39) by the Nazis two weeks before the Allied Forces arrived to free him.  Bonhoeffer lived out his conviction that “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”  Physical death?  For Bonhoeffer, yes.  Spiritual death?  If we are true followers, yes, even though it’s hard for us to die to our own safety and security, our desire for power and control, our need for affirmation and success, much less our very own lives, even for what we say we believe in.

Navalny.  Bonhoeffer.  Mahatman Ghandi.  Martin Luther King.  Oscar Romero. Nevgeny Prigozhin. Sergei Yushenkov. Anna Politkovskaya. Aleksandr Litvinenko. Natalya Estemirova. Sergei Magnitsky. Boris Nemtsov.  Jesus Christ.  The list goes on and on of those who held such strong convictions about right and wrong, social justice, forgiveness, love, equity, that they were willing to give their lives because they had no other choice.

Lent is a particularly appropriate season to ask myself how far I am willing to go to live into my convictions; how ready I am to make a sacrifice; what types of deaths (not just physical, but also emotional, spiritual, relational, financial) I am willing to risk to live into the Truth.  Navalny’s words may not be on a Post It note, but they are definitely etched on my heart.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

PS. If you want to know more about what Putin is capable of, and the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, read Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by William Browder.