Monday, October 26, 2015

Day 26: Joy That Defies the Gestapo



This post is part of a 31-day series.



Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor driven underground by the Nazi regime in the 1930s.  For his continued faithfulness to the Bible and his opposition to the Nazis, he was eventually arrested, imprisoned and executed.




Despite horrible circumstances, Bonhoeffer fought for joy in himself and others.  The following is an excerpt from his final letter to other embattled, weary, and frightened pastors.



A sort of joy exists that knows nothing at all of the heart’s pain, anguish, and dread; it does not last; it can only numb a person for the moment. The joy of God has gone through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it. 








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