Category: history

“The world is deathly ill. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers. Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change.” Corrie ten Boom — 1974

Even the most toxic environment can be the place where God’s presence shines brightest. If we are to represent Him, we must see Him plainly, let our goals match His, listen to His voice, and do what He tells us. God should not be expected to think like we do; we need to learn to think like He does.

People constantly attempted to draw Jesus into worldly thinking, using logic that ran counter to God’s heart. He often disappointed them, even once rejecting a plan to make Him king (John 6:15). Jesus knew He was already King, and His purpose was to bring men and women into God’s Kingdom. But the Kingdom of Heaven is unlike the kingdoms of this world. The ways and methods and schemes of man are often opposed to the ‘mind of Christ.’

God wants us to operate with the attitude, purpose, and practices of the Son. In 1944, after months of courageously hiding Jews in their Dutch home, the ten Boom family was arrested by Nazi occupiers. After an offer to be released if he agreed to stop his ‘disobedience,’ the eighty-four-year-old father, Casper ten Boom, said, “If I go home today, tomorrow I will open my door again to any man in need who knocks.” He was arrested and died ten days later.

Two of his daughters, Betsie and Corrie, were first imprisoned in Holland, then were moved to the Ravensbrook concentration camp in Germany. The presence of Christ in these sisters changed the atmosphere of the cold, lice-infected, overcrowded death camp. The Holy Spirit brings God’s priorities. Betsy and Corrie realized that to be messengers of the Gospel, they needed to be followers of the Master. They learned to give thanks in all circumstances, to forgive their enemies, to pray for those who mistreated them, and to remember that every soul is eternal — created by God who loves perfectly. Betsy died in Ravensbrook, but Corrie was ‘accidentally’ released before the end of the war. For nearly forty years following, she was a bold witness who kept declaring that there is no darkness so great that Jesus cannot overcome.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Hiding Place”:

As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God. ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or peril, or sword?… Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loves us.’

I would look around as Betsy read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors… It was not a wish. It was a fact. We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute – poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not ‘we shall be.’ We are! Life in Ravensbrook took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.

(“The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, A Bantam Book published by arrangement with Fleming H. Revell Company, 1983, pp 194-195)

Having studied the American Civil War in high school and college, I guess I should have known the answer to this trivia question: What American military leader lived in the Arlington mansion that overlooks the Potomac River with a grand view of Washington D. C.? The answer is: General Robert E. Lee of the Confederacy. Six of the Lees’ seven children were born during the thirty years they lived on the beautiful property that is now the Arlington National Cemetery.

With their Fitbits, Susan and her brother Steve confirmed that we walked between six and eight miles each of our first three days in Washington. I think we walked more in Arlington than any other single location.

Over 300,000 American citizens who served our country’s military are buried in this famous cemetery, including presidents William H. Taft and John F. Kennedy. Though there were thousands of visitors the day we were there, a solemn honor for the dead was observed.

One day in the future, an extraordinary happening will occur in Arlington and all other cemeteries. Preceded by a trumpet sound from above, those who are in Christ will rise from their graves. Can you imagine? These risen lovers of Jesus will then ascend and meet their Lord, followed by all disciples who are still alive on earth. Paul urges us to encourage one another with such words.

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
I Thessalonians 4:13-18

My friend’s dad never spoke to us about his experiences. The neighborhood guys were always in one another’s homes growing up and we all knew that Mr. Klein had survived the concentration camps of World War II. Most of us had seen the tattoo on his arm that all Jews received when first incarcerated.

Later in life, Mr. Klein chose to break the silence. He spoke to school assemblies and other groups in the Chattanooga area. He must have concluded that his story might contribute to confirming history and preventing such atrocities in the future.

The shrinking number of survivors due to age and the descendants of those who experienced ‘the Shoah,’ the Hebrew word used for Holocaust, want the world to remember and be on guard against the evils that target and destroy. Next week, May 5, is Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Memorial Day. At 10:00 am sirens will sound throughout Israel and everyone will stop and remember. The last time Susan and I were in Israel, we witnessed such a solemn moment. Cars pulled to the side of the road and people got out to stand in reverence during a two-minute period of silence.

As we entered the Holocaust Museum in Washington D. C. a couple of weeks ago, the message of ‘Never Again’ rang loud and clear. The most jolting part of the morning for me was walking on a bridge-like pathway through a room with a distinct smell. On the left and right of the path were thousands and thousands of shoes, the very shoes of those who were murdered in the concentration camps of Europe. As I think of these descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I think of Paul’s words.

“I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“‘The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.’

“As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?’ ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay Him?’ For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” Romans 11:25-36

“Dana, what are Apollo and Poseidon and Archimedes doing up there on that painting of George Washington?” John is taking a humanities course in junior high and, though he loves his teacher and the class, he asked me early in the semester why he had to learn about the ‘fake gods.’ I told him it is good to understand what past cultures believed and how those beliefs shaped the world in which we live. “But remember,” I encouraged, “there is only one true God.”

While he may not have gotten all the intended images correct as he looked straight up in the Capitol’s high dome, John did notice a rather strange painting in a most prestigious location. In the 1850’s, Constantino Brumidi was given the assignment of painting a huge fresco honoring our nation’s first president. Born in Rome to an Italian mother and Greek father, Brumidi was a gifted artist who eventually moved to America and fell in love with our young nation.

Completed in 1866, “The Apotheosis of Washington” shows the founding father surrounded by thirteen maidens, representing the original thirteen colonies, escorted into the exalted position of being a god. On the outside edges of the painting, Roman gods such as Mercury, Neptune, and Vulcan accompany American leaders in Science, Commerce, Marine life, Agriculture, War, and Mechanics. I asked a lady who worked at the Capitol why the artist used such images and she answered that he was imitating the art of his homeland.

While I would guess George Washington himself would not have approved of the idea of him being turned into a god (which is the meaning of ‘apotheosis’), we can know from the powerful example of Paul and Barnabas to never accept glory that belongs to our Father in heaven.

“In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.

“When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lyconian language, ‘The gods have come down to us in human form!’ Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.

“But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: ‘Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.” Acts 14:8-15

“The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:5)

In the darkness of racial violence and dissension, the Light appeared at Woodlawn High School in Birmingham, Alabama and many did not understand. As a spokesman for God concluded his remarks at a team meeting early in the 1973 season, almost every single football player accepted the invitation to follow Christ.

The impact was immediate. And while teachers, parents, administrators, coaches, and other students did not comprehend, they could not deny that white players and black players had unified in a dramatic way and that the atmosphere of the entire school was improving. As it became apparent that the only explanation for change was the commitment to Jesus, more and more people (including the head coach) surrendered their lives to Christ.

The sports community truly didn’t understand when it learned that the players from Woodlawn, knowing that Jesus said “Love your enemies,” set up a meeting with their rival opponent, Banks High School, to share the new life Christ brings. When the head coach of Banks and most of his team began following Jesus, people just shook their heads.

The true story is portrayed in the movie ‘Woodlawn,’ and the real people are interviewed in a bonus section of the DVD. In 1974, the undefeated Banks and Woodlawn football teams played before 42,000 people at Legion Field in Birmingham. Officials estimated between ten and twenty thousand spectators were turned away as the stadium was filled to capacity. In a city that needed healing and peace, the Light shone.

The world may not comprehend, but the world notices change. Darkness may recoil at the entrance of Light, but Light brings Life. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world,” knowing full well the darkness wanted to kill Him. But Light reveals Truth, and Truth leads to freedom.

Now Jesus tells those who have received Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord: “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12