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Come
to the Edge and Soar Mark
1: 1-3,9-11; 16: 1-8; Acts 10: 17 - 29 Christian
Reger
survived four years of Dachau Concentration camp in Germany during the 2nd
World War. Reger was not a Jew he was a German. His crime was that he was
a minister of the Confessing Church led by Martin Niemoller and Dietrich
Bonheoffer. The Confessing Church stood against the Nazis. Reger’s
organist had betrayed him. In
prison he faced torture, starvation, the death ovens and awful cruelty
done to others. Some Christians lost their faith. Reger nearly did. He
said he had abandoned all hope in a living God in his first month in
Dachau. It
was not that he was ready to deny his Lord. With the cruelty and suffering
all around him the odds against God's existence seemed too great, but God
never gave up on Reger. The
authorities allowed a prisoner only one letter a month from home and then
only after careful censorship. Exactly one month to the day of his
incarceration, Christian Reger received his first letter from his wife.
She mentioned news of the family and friends and assured him of her love.
At the bottom of the letter, she penned a Bible passage Acts 4: 26-29.
Reger had smuggled a Bible into the camp and was able to look up the
reference. It comes from a speech delivered by Peter and John after their
release from prison. 26
The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered
together against the Lord and against his Messiah.' 27 For in this city,
in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples
of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you
anointed, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to
take place. 29 And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your
servants to speak your word with all boldness. He
appreciated his wife's concern but he was preoccupied with what lay ahead.
He was to be interrogated by the SS that afternoon. He would be asked to
name other Christians in the Confessing Church. If he did, they would be
arrested and possibly be killed. If he refused, the soldiers would
probably beat him with clubs or torture him with electricity. Reger
waited nervously outside the interrogation room. A door opened and a
fellow minister whom Reger had never met came out. Without saying a word
or changing the expression of his face, the minister walked up to Reger,
slipped something into his coat pocket, and then walked away. Seconds
latter SS guards appeared and ordered Reger into the room for the
interrogation. The
interrogation went much better than Christian Reger expected. He was
sweating despite the cold when he arrived back at his barracks. He crawled
into his bunk to rest. Remembering the strange encounter with the other
minister, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a matchbox. When he
opened the box he found a folded slip of paper. He opened the paper and
read Acts 4:26-29. The exact same verse he had read in his wife's note.
His heart pounded hard against his chest. The God he had given up on had
worked a miracle. For
the next four years Reger encouraged other Christians, formed an
ecumenical church made up of Catholics and Protestants. In the presence of
unmitigated human brutality, they bore witness to the power of God to
forgive. After
the war Reger became a chaplain at Dachau with a mission to tell the world
that God’s love is deeper than the depth of human depravity. [Philip
Yancey] Pastor
Reger must have lived with much apprehension in those months prior to his
imprisonment, and great anxiety when imprisoned, and daily he would have
felt the welling of fear within him. I
tell the story to remind us that the
Christian life is not free of apprehension, anxiety or fear.
Apprehension comes to the surface when we are faced with the
unexpected and unknown. Not surprisingly the
first Christians were no strangers to anxiety and fear. Did you
hear the Gospel according to Mark today? Mark
ends with the male and even the female disciples running away in
fear. It is a strange ending, so different from the other Gospels that
end with triumph and joy. No wonder scribes added a more positive ending
later to Mark. But let us remember that John tells us that the disciples
met behind a “shut door” for fear [Jn 20:19]
and Luke tells us that they were frightened [Lk 24:37].
Why did Mark end his Gospel like this? Francis
J Maloney provides a thoughtful explanation.
The Gospel of Mark was written sometime around Emperor Nero’s
brutal persecution of Christians in Rome circa 65 AD and the destruction
of Jerusalem in 70 AD. These
were deeply troubling times for Christians. We can conclude that the
Gospel was written in a time when the Christians were under threat. Mark
wrote for apprehensive, frightened and fleeing Christians of
all times. Mark is at pains to emphasise that from the beginning the
success of the church was not dependent upon brave, enterprising
Christians, but the actions of God. Mark wants us to understand that God
will overcome all imaginable human failure. How
unsettling it must have been for Peter having a well earned rest in Joppa
to be disturbed by a troubling dream, and then Peter must go to a Gentile’s home.
Try and imagine the scene. Peter is a Jew who had accepted Jesus as
the Christ. Jews did not by law eat certain foods or fraternise with
Gentile in their homes. It was forbidden. Now God is calling him to do
that. Can you imagine his
apprehension? He
arrives at Cornelius’ house not as a superior spiritual person, but as
someone feeling his way. And there he finds that God
has spoken as clearly to this Gentile as God has spoken to him,
a leading disciple of Jesus. There
is no
spiritual superiority for Peter. By the way Peter’s anxiety
doesn’t stop at the door of Cornelius’ home. Inside the house his preaching is interrupted by God the
Spirit [Acts 10:44f].
The Spirit comes to these Gentiles in the exact same way as the Spirit
came to the disciples. I
tell these stories because we are entering a time of unsettledness. Like
you I have a measure of apprehension
about the Week of Renewal. Yes
I do. My feelings go up and
down. When I am tired and down I feel it could be just a silly idea and a
failure. Then God affirms me in little things. God encourages me with your
support, your own faithfulness and desire to continue to develop your
relationship with God. There are conversations taking place that we have
not had before. That is good. Yes, others are distancing themselves, and
others querying the reason for this “one sided focus”. I am confident that God will bless us as God is already
doing. The faith-sharing workshop seems to be a blessing to all – at
least many of us are blessed. As
I reflect on the Church’s history I am reminded again and again that
the safety of the Church, its renewal
and growth are a product of God’s activity with our faithful
partnership. I am reminded again and again it is God who initiates and
supports our faithfulness. I
am reminded that our faithfulness
is only a product of God’s faith in us and God the Holy
Spirit’s work in us. Our
stories remind us that with
God we can face the unknown. With God our
anxieties are lessened and our fears controlled. Pastor Reger
encouraged by a gift of Scripture enters the interrogation. And returning
from the interrogation and opening that matchbox discovered that the
Word of God has become a word from God to him. So Pastor Reger organises a church in Dachau. Peter
faces the unknown in faith trusting God. But he doesn’t escape the
continued pressure from his Jerusalem Christians who want to know why he
went to a gentile’s house, until they understood that this is God’s
will. Mark
wrote to an apprehensive fragile community about the unknown as
the Roman Empire flexed its muscles crushing Israel and persecuting
Christians. Mark wanted them to know that God who had secured the
Church’s life and would continue to do so. I
am reminded that we are like the
chicks of a mother eagle. The mother eagle knew her chicks were
ready to fly. “The time has come,” she said, “you must learn to
fly.” But
how? Replied the young
eagles, with a measure of uneasiness in their voices. “You
must go to the edge of the cliff, and throw yourself forward into the
wind,” said the eagle. With
anxious eyes the young eagles made their way to the edge of cliff high
above the valley below, and … quickly scrambled back to the safety of
the nest. The
next day the mother eagle said again that the time had come to fly. It’s
far too high, said
one. We
might fall, said
another. I’m
frightened, said the
third. The
mother eagle was insistent. “Come to the edge, come to the edge,” she
repeated. “Come to the edge, don’t be frightened.” Gradually
they made their way with anxious eyes they looked over the edge, and they
wavered. The
mother eagle gently nudged them one by one over the edge, and they spread
their wings and the wind lifted them and they flew, then they soared on
the wind. [Stories for Sharing p. 10] Our
Week of Renewal is calling us to
an edge in our faith journey. Naturally we are apprehensive. Indeed to
examine our relationship with anyone, let alone God, is threatening. Will
we scramble back to the safety of the nest – the things we are familiar
with, or will we soar with the wind of God? ******* Peter
C Whitaker, BUC: 20/04/2008
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