by Marilyn Ehle
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
“Komm mit uns.” In their most basic translation from German to English, those three words simply mean, “Come with us.” Yet the words took on horrifying reality when spoken to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and other prisoners of the Nazi regime. Author Eric Metaxas quotes one of Bonhoeffer’s fellow prisoners when he writes, “Those words ‘Come with us’—for all prisoners they had come to mean one thing only—the scaffold.”*
Knowing what lay ahead could have produced abject fear and mental collapse in this man who longed to continue working toward purity in the church, discipleship in its leaders and—personally—marriage to his beloved Maria. But years later an observer of this man’s death wrote, “I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
After reading of Bonhoeffer’s life of growing faith and trust in God, as well as observing the lives of others who face the end of their lives with contentment, I am led to believe that even though they acknowledge pain, suffering—even betrayal—they do so with peace because they have at some earlier time responded to another invitation, this one from Jesus: “Come to me.”
The Apostle Paul, no stranger to the unpredictability and reversals of life and the certainty of death, triumphantly exclaims, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’… thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)
Jesus never promises life without trouble or death without pain, but He promises to walk with us through the narrow, dangerous, curves of life and then to lead us to heaven and into the presence of the Father. Daily submission to Jesus’ invitation to “come” helps prepare us for that final call.
(*Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy)
You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2012/06/12/me_komm-mit-uns/
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