On this day in 1945, just before the POW camp in which he was being held was liberated by US soldiers, Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis. He was a man who spurned the safety he could have had outside of Germany and flung himself headlong into a stand against the Nazi takeover of the German state church and Germany itself. Dietrich Bonhoeffer fought against the capitulation of the church in the face of Nazi intimidation and intimately involved himself in the struggle against the onslaught of Hitler. His one concern was closeness to Christ and honouring Jesus above all even at the expense of his own safety. He immersed himself in working for God’s story of justice in the world. It cost him his life.

Because of his thinking, writing and life Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a man claimed by conservative and liberal Christians alike, fitting in both and neither camps well. He preceded the new-monastic movement with a monastic lifestyle he initiated with his seminary students – equipping them for the lives they would undertake in ministry. He profoundly engaged questions around what the Church is and its purpose and he showed a deep integrity of faith that was both humanly frail yet divinely sturdy.

Pastor Bonhoeffer has been a deeply foundational source for the shaping of my faith. His life and writings have been a significant part of my own pilgrimage. He both unsettles me and compels me forward. His thinking and life were deeply profound, well beyond my own and I have had many nights where I have found myself dwelling on something he wrote because I simply didn’t understand it. I have found him difficult to grapple with at times, but that hard work has always been worthwhile. I have not read all of his work and am not even close to being a Dietrich Bonhoeffer expert, but I am indebted to him for what his life has given mine.

If I believed and interacted with saints in the same way some of my Christian brothers and sisters do, officially recognised as such or not, Bonhoeffer would be the saint I would turn to first. As an ordained minister I follow in the footsteps of John Wesley and am proud of that heritage, claiming it as my own, but as I am known as a Wesleyan, I could equally, or more so, be known as a Bonhoefferan. This is not to say I am ‘of Paul, or Apollos’ but to say ‘I am of Christ’ and these are the people who train me and encourage me towards that.

For more on Bonhoeffer get your hands on Eric Metaxas biography about him and also his own Letters and Papers from Prison. These are a good introduction before diving into his other works.

The last words Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke as he stood naked at the gallows before the noose took his life were ‘this is the end for me – the beginning of life.’ He was said to have had an air of serenity as he faced his last moments. May that sense of assurance in Christ, and that understanding of the depth and beauty of the hope that is life in God, be something I embody and the same for all those who encounter the work of Pastor Bonhoeffer.

So to Dietrich Bonhoeffer I say thank you – I am honoured to be able to call you my teacher. May your name, your life and your work continue to be honoured for generations to come. Ultimately may your name and life direct people towards the compelling and saving depth of the God who is redeeming all to Himself and may your life and the lives of all of us who proclaim Christ, honour Him, the one we give our lives in service to.

I give the floor to a few simple words written by Pastor Bonhoeffer within a poem he penned in prison – Nachtliche Stimmen: Voices in the Night.

I will see the times change,
when signs light up the heavens,
new bells ring over the people,
growing louder and louder.

I wait for that midnight,
in which the shining splendor
dazzles and destroys the evil in our fear,
to establish with joy that which is right.