The human desire is for stability, and yet we live in a transient world full of phantasms and illusions; often of our own projecting. This desire is not innate to us, but comes to us as we are created for God. The tumult of this world system tosses us here and there, at points giving us moments of an illusory stability, whether that is found in riches, health, or hedonist momentary gratifications. All illusions are gone now, the world no longer appears as light, but its darkness abounds. Theologian par excellence, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, experienced this sort of palpable darkness in his day. Just as he was getting started as a theologian for the church, in particular, his Lutheran church, his world was thrust into the Nazi Reich. As history knows, his participation in an attempted assassination of Hitler landed him in prison, where he would finally be executed towards the end of the conflagration. Timothy George describes the last days of Bonhoeffer’s journey this way:

A few days later followed a letter to his mother Paula Bonhoeffer, who marked her 68^th birthday on December 30. He prays that the New Year “might bring us a glimmer of light, at least here and there,” and declares his belief that “these difficult years have forged an even closer bond between us than ever before.” The final words we have from Bonhoeffer’s hand are in a letter to his parents dated January 17, 1945. He instructs them to dispose of his clothes and other belongings: “Give away whatever anyone might need, without giving it a second thought. . . . after all, in the past two years I’ve learned how little a person needs to get by.” He hopes that Maria will bring him some books he has requested along with some matches, toothpaste, a few coffee beans, and a laxative. When the package finally came, however, Bonhoeffer was already gone. Unbeknownst to Maria and his parents, he had been taken to the concentration camp at Buchenwald, where he would spend two months en route toward the destiny that awaited him at Flossenbürg.[1]

Bonhoeffer knew his time here was about to slide into the triune time of the living God. It is a tragic story, really, but one that serves edifying for us still here; as potential martyrs for the risen Christ, just as Bonhoeffer became. In keeping with the theme of Bonhoeffer’s edifying life for the church, George notes a poem that Bonhoeffer wrote while in prison:

In this letter he included a poem he had written during that Advent, Von guten Mächten (“By Gracious Powers”), which later became a hymn still sung today in churches around the world. The final stanza of the hymn reads:

By powers of good so wondrously protected, we wait with confidence, befall what may. God is with us at night and in the morning and oh, most certainly on each new day.[2]

Bonhoeffer’s stability, as evinced by the hymn, is not in the circumstances awash around him, but in the eternal life of God. He found comfort and hope in the midst of the darkness by way of resting in the everlasting arms of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior.

I find great encouragement as I reflect on Bonhoeffer’s short but rich life. He was a Christian theologian who understood that God did not remain aloof in the heavens, but that the Christian God, his Lord, ‘humbled himself and became obedient, obedient to the point of death on a cross.’ As such Bonhoeffer lived a complex life that understood the import of the sacra doctrina, but recognized that this wasn’t a speculative or careful doctrine; he understood that the ‘law of Christ’ was one that impacted mundane life to the point of taking on flesh and blood. Bonhoeffer lived this reality out even as his homeland was mired down in the darkness of the evil one all around. He didn’t shrink back as others do, but he was a soldier for Christ; just as the Apostle Paul, facing down evil with the power of God, the Gospel of the risen Christ. He knew in this that there was a genuine hope that came to touch this world in concrete and lived fashion. This is how Bonhoeffer lived his life, all the way to the point that like his Savior it cost him his life. Just as Bonhoeffer was in union with Christ (unio cum Christo); just as Bonhoeffer was buried with Christ; so he was raised with Christ to the right hand of the Father. This is Bonhoeffer’s witness for Christ even now.

Bonhoeffer’s blood cries out from the grave that Jesus is Lord, and no amount of chaos, deception, or confusion can overcome that. This is timely for me to remember, and maybe it is timely for you too. We are all currently thrust into a world much like Bonhoeffer was; a world that has no stability, no certainty built into it. We are maneuvering around in a fog that causes all sides to grope about as if it had suddenly been thrust into a world where there is no light. Bonhoeffer didn’t shrink back from this world because he knew that this world has already been put to death in the death of Christ’s death for us. This is where Bonhoeffer found his way, truth, and life; this is where we, likewise, ought to find ours. Kyrie eleison

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[1] Timothy George, Bonhoeffer’s Last Advent, accessed 11-30-2020.

[2] Ibid.