Just finished watching V for Vendetta again, I watched it for the first time about a year ago, then it was on again about a week ago. Love the film.

One quote I just love:

Creedy: Die! Die! Why won't you die?... Why won't you die?
V: Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

World, beneath our facade, there is an idea...an idea that a man named Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became flesh and departed eternity to enter our world...He brought the message of the Kingdom of God, took our sins upon Himself on the cross, and rose on the third day...that is what we give our lives for.

Speaking of giving our lives for something, I was humbled as V talked about the Three Waters incident and the virus that killed the chilren and such. For some reason, as I pondered the reality of that happening in our times, it reminded me of an excerpt from the Apocrypha, 2 Maccabees and the zeal of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a story well-known by some, and reprinted by I unashamedly:

...It happened also that seven (Jewish) brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. One of them, acting as the spokesman, said, "What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers." The king fell into a rage, and gave orders that pans and caldrons be heated. These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, "The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared...:

When the first brother had died in this manner, they brought the second to be made sport of. After tearing off the skin and hair of his head, they asked him, "Will you eat the pork rather than have your body tortured limb by limb?"

Answering in the language of his forefathers, he said, "Never!" So he too in turn suffered the same tortures as the first.

At the point of death he said: "You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying."

After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands,
as he spoke these noble words: "It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again."

After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way.

When he was near death, he said, "It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life."

They next brought forward the fifth brother and maltreated him...
After him they brought the sixth brother. When he was about to die, he said: "Have no vain illusions. We suffer these things on our own account, because we have sinned against our God; that is why such astonishing things have happened to us...

Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother, who saw her seven sons perish in a single day, yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.

Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage, she exhorted each of them in the language of their forefathers with these words:

"I do not know how you came into existence in my womb; it was not I who gave you the breath of life, nor was it I who set in order the elements of which each of you is composed.

Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe who shapes each man's beginning, as he brings about the origin of everything, he, in his mercy, will give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law."

Antiochus, suspecting insult in her words, thought he was being ridiculed. As the youngest brother was still alive, the king appealed to him, not with mere words, but with promises on oath, to make him rich and happy if he would abandon his ancestral customs: he would make him his Friend and entrust him with high office.

When the youth paid no attention to him at all, the king appealed to the mother, urging her to advise her boy to save his life.

After he had urged her for a long time, she went through the motions of persuading her son.

In derision of the cruel tyrant, she leaned over close to her son and said in their native language: "Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age.

I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth and see all that is in them; then you will know that God did not make them out of existing things; and in the same way the human race came into existence.

Do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with them."

She had scarcely finished speaking when the youth said: "What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king's command. I obey the command of the law given to our forefathers through Moses.

But you, who have contrived every kind of affliction for the Hebrews, will not escape the hands of God...

...At that, the king became enraged and treated him even worse than the others, since he bitterly resented the boy's contempt.

Thus he too died undefiled, putting all his trust in the Lord.

The mother was last to die, after her sons.

Father, when my times comes, and that time of my family, whether it be in sleep, in sickness, or in torture, may I stand firm for Your Truth, for You, for Your Kingdom. May my family do the same. May we not compromise our convictions or belief in your eternal Kingdom, knowing that though we die in the body, we live in the Spirit, and look forward to eternal life with you.