City Life Starter

I. The Word: John 12:24-26

 

24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. 26 If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

 

II. Reflection Questions:

 

1. Have you fallen into the error of “cheap grace”?

2. Have you died to yourself?

3. Are you truly following Jesus?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born into a prominent German family in Poland in 1906. His family moved back to Germany, and Dietrich attended university there, ultimately obtaining his doctorate degree in theology from Berlin University in 1930.

 

As Bonhoeffer quickly gained a reputation as a brilliant and insightful young theologian, fascism and the cult of Hitler were on the rise in Germany. Bonhoeffer fought for the purity of the German church as it came increasingly under the influence of the Nazis. In 1933, when the German church adopted the Aryan Paragraph, requiring all pastors and church officials of Jewish descent to resign their posts, he had enough. So, in 1933 Bonhoeffer accepted an invitation to go to London to pastor two protestant German speaking churches there.

 

As he watched from across the channel at increasingly disturbing events in Germany, Bonhoeffer came to the growing realization that Jesus’ will for him was to return to Germany. He knew that to follow Jesus meant to be where Jesus was, and for Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Jesus was in Germany with the persecuted Church.

 

So, in 1935 Bonhoeffer returned to Germany. In 1936 he published a book that would later become a Christian classic, The Cost of Discipleship. In the book, Bonhoeffer argued there was a difference between what he called cheap grace and costly grace. Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer contended, is forgiveness of sin without repentance or a radical change in lifestyle. Costly grace is a life of the true disciple who dies to oneself and follows Jesus. And, as Bonhoeffer said, Christianity without discipleship is Christianity without Christ.

 

Bonhoeffer continued to work in the German resistance until he was arrested by the Nazis in 1943. The next two years Bonhoeffer spent in prison. It was in prison that Bonhoeffer wrote his now famous letters, letters which are still read by and have become a source of inspiration for Christians around the world.

 

 

 

Then, on April 9 1945, only two weeks before the allies arrived to liberate the concentration camp where he was being held, Bonhoeffer was led out into the courtyard, and executed by hanging. A witness to the execution remarked, “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

 

Bonhoeffer’s life bore much fruit, but I have wondered what his life would have been like had he remained in London until the end of the war. Would he have written The Cost of Discipleship? If he had, it certainly would not have had the impact it had if he not so completely lived out the costly grace he contended in the book constituted true Christianity. He certainly would not have written his letters from prison.

 

And then I think of all the people his book and his letters have inspired to follow Jesus. When Bonhoeffer decided to follow Jesus back to Germany, he did not know where Jesus would lead him or the impact his life as a disciple of Jesus would have on the world; he could not have known. Nor do we know when we choose to follow Jesus where He will lead us. All Bonhoeffer knew was that as a disciple he was called to follow Jesus. And we are called to do the same.

 

We may not be called to physically give our lives for Jesus as Dietrich Bonhoeffer ultimately did, but we are called to die to ourselves now. Because it is only when we die to ourselves that we become available to follow Jesus completely, and it is then when we are in a position to make a lasting impact on the world around us.