“You choose the dead over the living. That’s morbid.” Agnieska replies, “No, I choose the murdered over the murderers.”

The following are a few thoughts I had after watching the heart-wrenching Polish movie “Katyn” (http://tinyurl.com/23dkbbv )*.

Most people have forgotten that a few days after Poland was invaded by the Germans from the West in 1939, it was invaded by the Russians from the east and the two nations partitioned the country between them.

The occupation of eastern Poland by the Russians was in some senses worse than that of the Germans in the West and this movie details one of the most horrific aspects of that occupation and its aftermath, namely the systematic Soviet massacre of 22,000 Poles (mostly Polish Army officers) in 1940 in the Katyn forest outside of Smolensk.

When the Germans discovered the mass graves of the murdered Poles in 1943 they lost no time in using them for propaganda purposes. For many ordinary Poles this was the way that the discovered the brutal truth about what had happened to their loved ones who had disappeared into Soviet captivity almost 4 years earlier.

When the Soviets took Poland in 1945 they had to make out that the Nazis had done the killing themselves in 1941, and produced their own clumsy propaganda movies detailing their “horror” at the rediscovery. The Poles themselves knew full well that it was the Soviets and not the Nazis who had perpetrated the massacre, but in order to live in a “new” Poland under Soviet control many Poles chose to tell the official lie in order to stay safe.

Perhaps one of the most poignant moments in the movie is a struggle between two sisters over the tombstone of their brother who was one of the victims. One sister, Agnieska, wants the tombstone to reflect the truth that he died in 1940, while the other, Irena, who works for the new Polish government wants Agnieska to forget what happened or at least to have the tombstone reflect the official lie that he died 1941. Irena argues for the lie by saying the truth couldn’t bring back the dead, and castigating her sister with the words, “You choose the dead over the living. That’s morbid.” Agnieska replies, “No, I choose the murdered over the murderers.”

There is a profound truth there, perhaps deeper than even the filmmakers intended.

When we choose to repeat or not contradict a popular lie, we not only give our allegiance to the deceivers, but to the Deceiver, the father of lies, in the same way that Eve threw in her lot with the Devil when she decided to accept his lie that “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4) This should remind us that while it often easier to go along with a lie, that lies are the products of corruption and always lead to death.

One of the ways we are asked to lie about a massacre in our own time, is to repeat the popular idea that the human being a pregnant woman carries in her womb is a choice and not a baby, and in so doing we assist in covering over the legal killing of 53 million infants.

But we can do this in a myriad of other ways as well, we do it when we agree to teach evolution in order to keep a teaching job, or when we go along with the idea that marriage isn’t necessary in order to please our friends, or when we acquiesce to the notion that people of the same sex can married in order to work in the government, or when we consent to the declaration that all religions lead to heaven in order not to offend our relatives.

I would exhort you not to allow that to happen in your own life. Lies always drive out truth, and they tend to grow exponentially, one lie inevitably begetting others. And remember, in order to protect their lies, the liars have to destroy the truth tellers. This is why Christ was persecuted and why his followers still are!

Remember when you are tempted to go along with a popular lie, the words of Jesus Christ to Pontius Pilate, a man so steeped in deception he had begun to doubt that truth even existed or could be found anymore:

“Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37)

Remember also, that Christ spoke these words just before His own judicially sanctioned murder, and ask yourself, who do I want to stand with at the end of time – the Murdered or the murderers?

* Please note, this isn’t a family movie, the scenes of the massacre are graphic and would certainly produce nightmares in most children.

Andy Webb is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church America and serves as Pastor of Providence Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC