“The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.” (The Cost of Discipleship)
I can’t think of a better devotional than Dietrich Bonhoeffer for Easter! “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We don’t say things like that in our churches, do we? Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a gift to the Body of Christ. He was unique because he understood the importance of suffering. This is one thing the Church has lost sight of.
This Easter season, we’ll see an increase in the attendance of our churches. As people pour into our sanctuaries most sermons will be something like this…“Accept Christ and your life will be better.” “Come to Christ and you won’t be disappointed.” “Invite Jesus into your heart and you will be happy!”
This is not what Bonhoeffer preached. I don’t think it’s what the true Gospel is. God used Dietrich Bonhoeffer to navigate His people through Germany’s darkest hour. From 1933-1945, Bonhoeffer helped organize a movement of evangelical Christians known as the Confessing Church. It opposed Nazism and the Nazi-based German Christian Church movement.
Dietrich was a young pastor, theologian and author who was active in seeing Germany free from the wicked grip of Nazism. He had opportunities to leave Germany. He had friends both in the United States and the United Kingdom who offered him exile. Yet he refused their offers in order to stay and strengthen the underground Confessing Church.
It was on April 6, 1943 that Bonhoeffer was arrested. While in custody at the Tegel Military Prison, he vigorously wrote to strengthen and encourage the Church. He awaited trial for two years. He was secretly transferred to Flossenburg Concentration Camp in February of 1945.
After his Sunday service for the prisoners of Flossenburg, he was led away to be tried. The Nazi regime condemned him to death. The sentencing was to be carried out the following day, April 9, 1945. They hung this thirty-nine year-old pastor with a thin wire meant for strangulation.
The doctor who witnessed the martyrdom wrote in his journal that evening, “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
My question this Easter season is this, “Where are the Bonhoeffer’s who will challenge us to this kind of Christianity?” Read carefully what Bonhoeffer wrote to the Church, “to endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”
Amos 6:1 is a strong warning to the Church. The Bible says, “Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion…” Are you comfortable this Easter? Are you taking any risk at all for the glory of God and the advancement of the Gospel? When I read the works of Bonhoeffer, it shakes me out of my laziness and apathy! The Church needs this kind of message…I need it!
Paul told us what our day would look like. He wrote to the young pastor, Timothy, “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Avoid such people.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV)
I’m sure you are aware that we are living in the very evil day described in 2 Timothy 3. What is needed is not a selling of the Gospel of Jesus Christ like an infomercial. We need a radical plea for people to respond to the rich grace of God provided through the repentance of sin. I hope you will gain the greatest appreciation for Bonhoeffer through this last quote. This statement is the reason you should go out and purchase a copy of the book, The Cost of Discipleship.
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” (The Cost of Discipleship)
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