A reminder of God’s faithfulness amid great darkness from Hanns Lilje, a Christian leader imprisoned in Nazi Germany.
The author of those words, Hanns Lilje, was a leader in the confessing church that boldly opposed Hitler. Imprisoned for his actions, he spent time in both the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. On that memorable Christmas Eve of 1944, in a moment of “sentimental softness” the SS commandant removed the chains of a violinist awaiting execution and allowed him to play in the large vaulted hall of the prison.
Lilje paced back and forth in his cell, listening to the beautiful music so different from the usual prison sounds. He recalled the Christmas message he had given the previous year, before his arrest. Allied bombing raids were leveling Berlin, and many families, especially those with children, had left the city.
Speaking in his unheated church, he had addressed a congregation of mostly senior citizens who had nowhere else to go. He chose a passage from Isaiah 9: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (v. 2).
While preparing his sermon, Lilje had reminisced about childhood Christmases, when he would walk the streets with his playmates, excitedly peering into homes at the brightly lit Christmas trees inside. During wartime, however, all windows were darkened under strict blackout rules.
As a pastor, what light could he possibly offer in such dark and difficult times? And now, a year later, what light could he even imagine, waiting in a darkened cell for his own death sentence to be carried out?
As I read Hanns Lilje’s remembrance of a Christmas eight decades ago, my mind went to contemporaries who are walking in darkness. Ukrainians huddled around a kerosene lamp in a basement bomb shelter as Russian missiles fly overhead. Palestinian Christians in Gaza sharing a Christmas ...
from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/sfBp3iH
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