The Man Who Won't Rest
I have been thinking all week about a man who spent 266 days in detention and says that freedom felt disorienting.
Pastor Jin Mingri, who goes by Ezra, founded Zion Church in Beijing in 2007. When the government shut its buildings in 2018, the church did not die; it scattered into homes and onto screens and grew to some 10,000 people. Last October, authorities took Jin and other Zion leaders into custody, accused of illegally using information networks, which is what it is called when an unregistered church livestreams a sermon.
He was held in Beihai, in southern China. He has since described sleeping on floor mats in extreme heat, and long days of sitting on hard benches, forbidden to stand without permission. On July 3 he was released, and on July 4 he landed in Los Angeles, stepping out of a detention cell and into America's 250th birthday. His family thanked God and credited sustained pressure from the administration and Congress for his release. Writing in the Wall Street Journal a few days later, Jin admitted the whiplash of it, and said of those who advocated for him: even in the bleakest moments, we took great comfort in their support.
Then he said the thing I cannot put down. At least eight members of his church remain in custody in China. And Jin, one week out of detention, newly reunited with his family, wrote: I won't rest until they see freedom.
I read that sentence in a comfortable chair, in a country where my worship has never cost me anything, and I felt the distance between his discipleship and mine.
Hebrews 13:3 tells us to remember those in prison as if we were together with them in prison. Not remember them fondly. Remember them as if bound with them. The writer assumes a church whose imagination is strong enough, and whose love is stubborn enough, to feel the weight of chains it is not wearing.
Here is what strikes me about Jin. Prison did not teach him to treasure his own safety. It taught him to refuse rest while his friends are still inside. The first fruit of his freedom was not relief; it was intercession. He walked out of the bleakest room of his life and immediately turned around to face it, because people he loves are still in there.
I do not say this to shame anyone, least of all myself. Most of us will never be tested the way Zion Church has been tested, and it is no sin to be born in a free country. But freedom is a stewardship, not a couch. The question Jin's sentence puts to me is simple: what is my freedom for? If I can worship without fear, pray without hiding, and speak without a knock at the door, then my ease is not the point of those gifts. The bound church is praying for the free church to act like the same body.
Reports from China are hard to verify, and the numbers differ slightly between accounts; International Christian Concern counts eight Zion members still held, and Human Rights Watch says at least eight. We tell you when the record is uncertain. But the shape of the thing is certain. A church kept worshiping when it was banned. A pastor kept his faith when he was caged. And now, free, he refuses to rest.
This week I am going to take Hebrews 13:3 literally. I am going to pray for the eight by circumstance, since I do not know all their names, and for the Zion congregation still gathering in homes and on screens under surveillance. And when Sunday comes and going to church costs me nothing, I am going to remember that somewhere it costs everything, and worship accordingly.
My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. Jin waited 266 mornings. Eight of his friends are still waiting. Let us wait with them, as if together.
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