Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man of great strength, courage, and faith. I am struck by his authentic questioning of who he was while waiting in a desecrated Lutheran church and about to be taken to the Flossenberg Concentration Camp in April, 1945. The questions he asked in 1945 are still relevant to us in 2021.
What will people need in this new world of COVID to survive into the next century? We will need religion and faith in Jesus Christ. Both religion and faith mean that the people of the world will have to share in each other’s pain. Waiting for Jesus Christ to come again, we will need to speak a new language and a new truth. As we begin to believe in our new future and our new life, we will all need to remember that courage brought the world to this point in history, and courage will continue to move us forward.
As the Allies began bombing the area surrounding Flossenberg, the Gestapo agent in charge of Dietrich asked him why he was shaking. Dietrich responded, “You made me stripe naked; I’m cold.” The Gestapo agent declared, “This is your end.” Dietrich defiantly responded, “This is only my beginning.” Looking towards his heavenly home, Dietrich walked up the three steps to the gallows, took off his glasses, and calmly said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Writing from his prison cell, Dietrich penned a poem entitled, “Who Am I?” He described how his captors thought he was calm and joyous as he walked from his cell “like a noble from his manor.”(1) He spoke with his guards with a clear and friendly manner ” as though he was the one in charge.” (2) His captors described him as smiling and courtly “like one accustomed to victory.”(3) Throughout the poem, he repeated the words, “Who Am I?” (4)
He questioned if he was only what others thought of him, or was he what he knew himself to be. He described himself as, “disquieted, yearning, sick, caged like a bird, fighting for breath as at the hands of a strangler, craving colors, flowers, birdsong, thirsting for kind words, human closeness, shaking with rage at tyranny, tossed about in anticipation of great events, helpless in worry for friends, tired with nothing left for praying, thinking, working, weary and ready to take leave of it all.” (5)
Again, he questioned who he was. Was he one thing yesterday, another today, and something else tomorrow? Was he a hypocrite or was he a “self-pitying weakling?” (6) Was he a defeated person, running from the advance of the Allies? He felt alone with his questions, but he understood that, despite every description of him and everything he had fought for, God knew him the best. No noose or no tyrant could tear him away from belonging to God. He saw evil and declared it wrong, used his voice to tell others there was another way, and believed that God would carry him home.
Are we not the Dietrich Bonhoeffers of 2021? Do we not feel restless, longing, sick, like prisoners in our own homes, have trouble breathing with masks, wanting God’s gifts of beauty and nature, in need of kindness and human contact, angry at the last president, Donald Trump, for loving himself more than the American people, frustrated by so many social problems, worrying about our families and friends, tired by work, troubled thoughts, and prayers for forgiveness, and sometimes, wondering if the 700,000 people we’ve lost to COVID are better off than we, the living? Trusting in God to deliver us out of the bondage of COVID, I pray that we will emerge from these difficult times to share in each other’s pain and to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. I pray that all of us will ask for God’s forgiveness and that the world will rise above this horrible disease to say in unison, “We are one world, and we place our trust in God.” Who am I? Who are we? We are the children of God, in whom He places the greatest love, hope, and peace. We may have to fight to make this world a better place, but we are still His.
Anna Hartt
