A trembling light on a stand

Raymond woke from his broken sleep with a dull ache in the pit of his stomach and an overpowering sense of fear that made his heart beat loudly in his chest. Today was the day he was to voyage to the northern shores of Africa. His passage on board the vessel had been secured for weeks, and his missionary articles were stowed ready. The vessel only waited upon him.

From the open window, the town of Genoa seemed to buzz with public anticipation of his bold ambitions to share Jesus Christ with those of the faith that Europe fought in the on-going Crusades. Picking up his quill pen, he wrote. ‘I am overwhelmed with terror at the thought of what might befall me in the country whither I am going. . .’ The quill shook uncontrollably in his hand. ‘. . . The idea of enduring torture or lifelong imprisonment presents itself with such force that I cannot control my emotions.’

These strong concerns grew more forceful, and finally they reached such a head that he was constrained to have his things removed from the ship’s hold. As the ship glided out of the harbour, Raymond stared, overcome with self-hatred and regret. ‘His passionate love for Christ could not bear the thought that he had proved a traitor to the cause for which God had specially fitted and called him’ and a bitter disappointment filled his soul at the reality that he remained unmoved from European soil.

‘And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?’ (Romans 10.14-15).

A light in the Dark Ages

The year is 1291 and our man is Raymond Lull, a Spaniard from Palma, Majorca. One cannot forget that Europe was at this time in the dark spiritually, with the most ardent religious labours being the murderous exploits of the Crusades and the Inquisition. The church was largely corrupted by political pursuits, and the empire encouraged little development of the sciences and the arts.

Born to a wealthy family in 1232, Raymond Lull (nicknamed Doctor Illuminatus) was well educated as a child, and although he did not enter a university, his ability and personal education is unrecognisable to that of today. Lull was writer, philosopher, alchemist, astrologer, poet, botanist, theologian, apologist, missionary and linguist; fluent in Latin, Catalan, Occitan and Arabic.

His spiritual fervour is, however, our present subject. Of this light for Christ in the Dark Ages, a biographer said, ‘Of all the men of his century of whom we know, Raymond Lull was most possessed by the love and life of Christ, and most eager, accordingly, to share his possession with the world’.

‘Into marvellous light’

Raymond Lull started life as a troubadour, a sensualist who served the royal court. He was, therefore, the most ‘unlikely person to remind the church of its missionary vision. A court gallant — he squandered his life in frivolity, romantic stories, love poems, and seduction. He was 30 before that changed.’

Some myth and legend encircle the life of Raymond Lull, and so history offers two accounts of his conversion experience (c.1266-7). The first is the story that while Lull composed a song for the purposes of wooing a married lady, he saw, over his right hand, a vision of Christ on the cross. This recurring vision is said to have left him weeping bitterly for his sin and the impossible demands of a holy life.

The second account places Lull in the chamber of this married lady, believing himself to have won her over. However, in compassion for his aimless soul, she displays her cancer-ridden chest, urging him to live a more worthy life; therefore affirming to him the futility of the flesh and the pressing reality of eternity.

Whatever account is accurate is perhaps not important. For we know Lull met Jesus. He writes, ‘Christ is all-patient and pitiful; he invites all sinners to himself; therefore he will not reject me, sinner though I be.’

So Lull’s life was transformed. He became Christ’s own possession, that he might ‘proclaim the excellencies of him who called him out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Peter 2.9).

Sharing the light

Raymond Lull studied Arabic, theology, and philosophy for ten years, in preparation for the missionary call to the Islamic African-Arab lands. He was a man who had ‘counted all things as loss’ as he had left all worldly wealth and earthly connections, even his wife and children, for the sake of making Christ known. While one may reflect with distaste on Lull abandoning his family in order to free him for missionary work, one can’t help but admire his undivided heart, his single-mindedness for the Great Commission.

So we return to the year 1291, to the harbour walls of Italy’s Genoa, and find Raymond ashamed and devastated by his own failure.

Lull’s grief was so profound that he became weak and was for days stricken with a terrible fever. Nevertheless, upon hearing that another ship bound for Tunis was in dock, Lull demanded his friends place him on board. Although he was not expected to live, Lull made a miraculous recovery as soon as the ship was gently pitching on the Medittearean stretch between Italy and North Africa.

History tells us that Lull was thoroughly God-centred and biblical in his missionary method. He proclaimed the goodness of God and boasted of the offence of the cross; not ‘building a rickety bridge out of planks of compromise’. Soon after, Lull was thrown in prison and given the death sentence. Through divine intervention this was changed to deportation and he was escorted, through a screaming mob intent on stoning him, onto his previous vessel and warned his return would mean death. However, Raymond’s gospel-driven audacity had him sneak himself off board and remain a further three months in Tunis in secret, in order to build up and baptise the new believers.

Living by The Life

From 1301 to 1309, being in his late 60s and having earned full retirement, Lull made several missionary trips to North Africa and the Near East. On his visit to Bugia, Algeria, in 1307, Lull stood in the marketplace as the Apostle Paul had elsewhere centuries before, and fearlessly proclaimed Christ. He responded to the threat of death, ‘death has no terrors whatever for a sincere servant of Christ who is labouring to bring souls to a knowledge of truth.’ This resulted in his spending half a year in a dungeon. He then sailed from Bugia as a prisoner, was shipwrecked but then rescued near Pisa, Italy.

God had still not finished with him.

In these persecutions, his love only grew stronger. For in the power and beauty of Jesus, Lull knew that death had truly lost its sting. As his motto reveals:

He who loves not, lives not.
He who lives by the Life cannot die.

On August 14 1314, Lull crossed over to Bugia again and spent time building up a church of believers who were the fruit of his work. Ten months later, the elderly Raymond Lull, tired and longing for heaven, presented himself again in the market pleading the gospel of Christ. The crowds dragged him out of the town and stoned him. Raymond Lull died on June 30 1315.

Samuel Zwemer likens Lull to the Apostle Paul, not merely in both sharing lives of constant drama, in visions, shipwreck, imprisonment and martyrdom, but also the shared ‘rule of Christ supreme in death, supreme also in life, its thought, its purpose, its taste, its use, its friends, its sacrifice’.

Christ’s grace to missionary failure

Every time we become engrossed in a missionary biography of a past hero or heroine of the faith, we are all too aware that we stand on the shoulders of giants. However, for those involved in any Christian ministry, it is easy to become deflated when you observe that your past week, month or year does not resemble those of your subject.

This is why the story of Raymond Lull is so helpful; it is the story of a man who succeeded and failed. As a young Christian, he was frequently lulled into apathy and then made tearful rededications to God. Yet in his goodness, God used Lull significantly for his kingdom.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reveals to his disciples their new identity and responsibility: ‘You are the light of the world’ (Matthew 5.14). He exhorts his listeners to let their light shine in order to glorify God and not to conceal it in fear or laziness.

Raymond Lull did not put his light under a basket. Instead, he let it boldly radiate from its stand so much that he was killed for it. You could say that Lull was a great missionary, as he single-handedly pioneered mission to the Muslim world. Yet he was a human missionary; he had days of fear and days of failure. Still his humanness was an effective instrument used by the graciousness of God. Christians must revel and rejoice in the fact that they are used by the same grace which bought them.

Sources:
Samuel Zwemer, Raymond Lull, First Missionary to the Moslems.
William Barber, Raymond Lull, the illuminated doctor.