what I'm reading: Bonhoeffer on how war helps us to see

Just as time-lapse photography makes visible, in an ever more compressed and penetrating form, movements that would otherwise not be thus grasped by our vision, so the war makes manifest in particularly drastic and unshrouded form that which for years has become ever more dreadfully clear to us as the essence of the “world.” It is not war that first brings death, not war that first invents the pains and torments of human bodies and souls, not war that first unleashes lies, injustice, and violence. It is not war that first makes our existence so utterly precarious and renders human beings powerless, forcing them to watch their desires and plans being thwarted and destroyed by more “exalted powers.” But war makes all of this, which existed already apart from it and before it, vast and unavoidable to us who would gladly prefer to overlook it all.

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what I'm reading: Bonhoeffer on the sweetness of death

Bonhoeffer was executed at dawn on 9th April 1945 at Flossenbürg concentration camp, only two weeks before the camp was liberated by US soldiers. He was killed because of his role in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

A few days before he died Bonhoeffer told his friend, "This is the end — for me the beginning of life." The camp doctor who watched the execution said, "I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."

How was Bonhoeffer able to die with such courage and hope? Here he writes about the sweetness (yes, the sweetness!) of death.

No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward to being released from bodily existence...That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up — that is for young and old alike to think about.

Why are we so afraid when we think about death? Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle; it beckons to us with heavenly power if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.

How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?

Death is hell and night and cold if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.

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what I'm reading: Bonhoeffer

My calling is quite clear to me. What God will make of it I do not know...I must follow the path. Perhaps it will not be such a long one. (Phil 1:23). But it is a fine thing to have realized my calling...I believe its nobility will become plain to us in coming times and events. If only we can hold out. (123)

I've just read Bonhoeffer, a biography by Eric Metaxas. All I knew about Bonhoeffer before was that he wrote The cost of discipleship and was martyred under the Nazi regime. This book is a fascinating read. Not easy - I took a break to dip into a light novel - but good, like a hearty meal, filling and nourishing and life-giving.

I was inspired to read more biography by my friend Jenny after we both read Tony Reinke's Lit!. I started with Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, which I highly recommend, then moved on to Bonhoeffer; next, I want to read Eric Metaxas' biography of William Wilberforce, Amazing Grace. Mostly, I have to admit, I don't love reading Christian biographies - they leave me feeling inadequate - but this one informed and encouraged me.

Bonhoeffer is the kind of book that falls into your life like a (rather large) stone: I can picture ripples spreading out from it through my life for years to come. It challenged me to live more whole-heartedly for Jesus; to get more involved in the world, both in enjoying its blessings and engaging with those who suffer; and to face persecution and opposition with courage and purpose.

Above all, Bonhoeffer doesn't let us get away with playing with God's word. He said to a friend, "when you read the Bible, you must think that here and now God is speaking with me" (128). The Sermon on the Mount  gave him his "calling" and showed him what it might cost. Ultimately, it would lead him to his death. He said,

Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. Do not defend God’s Word, but testify to it. Trust to the Word. (261)

It's a risky business opening the Bible. Who knows where reading God's word might take us?