A Hero's Hanging

This month we remember the life and death of one my heroes: Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging in a Nazi concentration camp on April 9, 1945.

Bonhoeffer was a good man who loved Jesus, loved the Word of God, loved the gospel, and loved the church.  He's an example to me of Jesus' invitation in Luke 9:23, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."

Church
On a holiday trip to Rome, Bonhoeffer experienced church like never before.  It was Palm Sunday and he worshipped at a church with people of other races and cultures.  He said, “The universality of the church was illustrated in a marvelously effective manner.  White, black, yellow members of religious orders – united under the church.  It truly seems ideal.” (53)*

On a trip to Paris he attended church with a bunch of prostitutes and pimps who were grieved over their sins and he realized that these people must be very close to the heart of the gospel.  “I have long thought that Berlin’s red light district would be an extremely fruitful field for church work.  It’s much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying.” (72) 

The Word
Bonhoeffer submitted to the Bible as his highest authority in life and the highest authority for the church.  “The church still has the Bible, and as long as she has it we can still believe in the holy Christian church.  God’s word will never be denied (Isa. 55:11).” (57)  “The Bible alone is the answer to all our questions.” (136) 

The Gospel
Bonhoeffer took a trip to the United States in 1930 and was deeply grieved by the shallow Christian theology that he saw.  As he observed professing Christians he said, “they do not see the radical claim of truth on the shaping of their lives.” (104)  In fundamental churches, all he heard were sermons bashing the liberals.  And in liberal churches all he heard were sermons about politics and social gospel.  “In New York they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.” (106) 

Jesus
“I have long thought that sermons had a center that, if you hit it, would move anyone or confront them with a decision.  I no longer believe that.  First of all, a sermon can never grasp the center, but can only itself be grasped by it, by Christ.” (81)  Jesus was always at the center of Bonhoeffer’s thinking.  While observing that most Christians have exiled Christ from their lives he said, “One admires Christ as a genius, calls him the greatest ethicist, one admires his going to his death as a heroic sacrifice for his ideas.  Only one thing one doesn’t do: one doesn’t take him seriously.  That is, one doesn’t bring the center of his or her own life into contact with the claim of Christ to speak the revelation of God and to be that revelation.  One maintains a distance between himself or herself and the word of Christ, and allows no serious encounter to take place.  I can doubtless live with or without Jesus as a religious genius, as an ethicist, as a gentleman.  Should however, there be something in Christ that claims my life entirely with the full seriousness that here God himself speaks, then Christ has not only relative but absolute, urgent significance for me.  Understanding Christ means taking Christ seriously.” (82-83)

In 1934 Bonhoeffer and a group of pastors who resisted Hitler and the Nazis became known as the Confessing Church.  This was part of their confession:

Try the spirits whether they are of God! Prove also the words of the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church to see whether they agree with Holy Scripture and with the Confessions of the Fathers. If you find that we are speaking contrary to Scripture, then do not listen to us! But if you find that we are taking our stand upon Scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the Word of God, in order that God's people be of one mind upon earth and that we in faith experience what he himself has said: 'I will never leave you, nor forsake you.'

The inviolable foundation of the German Evangelical Church is the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is attested for us in Holy Scripture.

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords--areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ [is] Lord through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

The Church's commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people. (222-226)

Bonhoeffer was arrested on April 5, 1943 for trying to smuggle Jews out of Germany.  He was ripped away from his family, friends, students, and fiancee and thrown into prison.  Eventually, the Nazis discovered Bonhoeffer's involvement in the plot to assasinate Hitler.  His execution was scheduled for April 9, 1945.  After he was hanged his body was burned in a pile with other "traitors." 

Two weeks later the concentration camp where Bonhoeffer was executed was liberated by Allied forces.  At Bonhoeffer's memorial, the pastor read Matthew 10,

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.  And you will be hated by all for My name's sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.

The question for us is this: Do we take Christ seriously? Do we love Jesus passionately? Will we follow our Lord obediently?




*all quotes are taken from Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010)