Note: This is the fourth message in my 2014 Advent series.
Christmas, 1944, would be his last. His circumstances seemed dire, the cause lost and darkness descending on the faithful.
A Christian pastor had stood boldly in witness for Christ against the powers of evil.
When Visser’t Hooft, the General Secretary of The World Council of Churches, asked him, “What do you pray for in these days?”
Bonhoeffer replied ”If you want to know the truth, I pray for the defeat of my nation.”
It seems that in seventy years (since 1944), even 2014 years and many generations since the first Christmas, not much has changed. Names on the map change and nations once powerful are gone. God remains.
Many have died for Christ. Many have died as enemies of Christ, martyrs for hell opposed to God Almighty. These cannot prevail. Sin may have its day, but in Christ Jesus sin will not prevail.
What an odd prayer from a condemned man: I pray for the defeat of my nation.
Was it appropriate for a German opposed to Hitler and those who elected him? Was it appropriate for a Christian in Russia who opposed the atheists’ war against the church and the people of Russia, the Soviet Union, and now (once more) Christians of Russia, Ukraine and other Slavic cultures?
Is Bonhoeffer’s prayer appropriate for a citizen of the United States or a citizen of the United Kingdom? Is praying for the defeat of my nation appropriate for Christians in Iran, Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan? Should those subject to persecution in Pakistan, Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia or any other country where evil reigns and Christians are persecuted by word and by deed – should these pray for the defeat of their government?
6a For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder…
19 Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts
the land is scorched,
and the people are like fuel for the fire;
no one spares another.
The implications of Jesus Christ being our “King” goes far beyond an obligatory hour of power worship on a Sunday.
IF Jesus is our King, THEN He must be our Lord!
John 18
33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
… What have you done?”
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
King Herod, who attempted the genocide of the baby Jesus and murdered so many in Bethlehem, also realized the potential power of the Messiah, the Christ; God With Us, Emmanuel.
Hitler understood that the power of Christians like Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer could defeat the evil extermination of his enemies. In addition to hanging Bonhoeffer in 1945, Hitler murdered untold millions, not only Jews but also ethnic Christians from many countries other than his own.
The God-opposed world watches the outcomes of the wars and battles funded by those who have little concern for righteousness. Russia and the U.S. will continue to sell weapons to men like Osama Bin Laden. Iran understands the threat of the imprisoned American citizen, Pastor Saaed Abedini. Are these dark days so different than Christmas, 1944, or the Christmas Herod murdered the babies of Bethlehem?
Yet China and the U.S. murder millions of babies every year in these current evil times.
What is our prayer for the leaders of these countries that murder babies and allow imprisonment of thousands fleeing from the evil that invades their homes, mosques, churches, towns and very livelihood?
Are the leaders of the nations not destined to fail when their outspoken actions stand in the Face of God?
And where, dear church, beloved brothers and sisters in the faith: Protestant, Catholic, Coptic, Orthodox Russian, Orthodox Greek, Lutheran (as was Bonhoeffer), non-denominational, Baptist and Anti-Baptist… where are you, beloved Christian, in witnessing for Jesus Christ in this crisis Christmas of 2014… in the time before even more refugees… even more babies in China and the U.S. and the world will suffer and die at the hands of evil men and evil women?
- Have you sent money to help?
- Have you stood against the same policies that exterminate babies that could bring on a healthcare holocaust of euthanasia (an Auschwitz shower for the old and dying) in the waning years of your own life?
- Have you stood up for marriage between a man and a woman?
- Have you stood for no divorce?
- Is your Christian marriage a witness for Christ?
- Have you stood for purity of your virgin children and opposed the raging tide of uncontrolled sex between the sons and daughters of our ‘christian homes?’
- Are you keeping your teens from being ‘in a relationship?’
- Do your christian children prevent abortion by not having intercourse?
Is there much barely covered and unspoken sin in our Christian homes, our christian broken families, our communities and nations no longer caring about Christ and Christmas? Of course, there is.
Is there excessive misuse of God-given money and God-given time in our Christian ‘households?’ Of course there is.
Why not confess your own sins. Repent once more and obey our King and Savior once more, Make Jesus your Lord again. Proclaim Him and obey your King.
Where is the church, this Christmas?
To be continued…
Judea was a mess, again. Judea was no longer Judah. Jerusalem was not a political capital, because it was ruled by Rome. Israel was centuries before defeated (even before the fall of Judah and the rise of Rome). Israel became part of Syria on the current Roman map. Galilee was less than a state, under the rule of different Romans than Judea. Nazareth was nothing more than a little fishing village, a nice place for Joseph to have a little carpenter shop and raise his family.