(*Reviewer’s Note: I am reviewing a pdf. copy from NetGalley on
Kindle which does not include page numbers. I will do my best to indicate from which areas
of the book I use citations.)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, minister and theologian living in Germany
during the rise of Nazism, was imprisoned for taking part in a plot to
assassinate Hitler. In 1945, three
months before he would be executed, he wrote the poem New Year 1945 about his hope for the coming year, in spite of all
of the tragedies that had happened in the world the year before.
When now the silence deepens for our
harkening
Grant we may hear Thy children’s voices
raise
from all the unseen world around us
darkening
their universal pain, in Thy praise.
While all the powers of good aid and attend
us,
boldly we’ll face the future, be it what
may.
At even, and at morn, God will befriend us,
and oh, most surely on each new year’s day
Each year, the church experiences the season of Lent and
Easter as hope in the face of tragedy, which makes the writings of Bonhoeffer a
perfect accompaniment for our journey towards the cross.
God is on the Cross: Reflections on Lent and Easter(Westminster John Knox Press, 2012) is a devotional
text of collected writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant to be read daily in
preparation for Easter. In fact, it is a
specific reworking of selections of text from a devotional collection released
previously by Westminster John Knox Press entitled I want to Live These Days with You:
A Year of Daily Devotionals. Jana Riess, the editor, wove into the
original text Scripture references from the NRSV and what she calls “bonus
material” (xi) ,additional selections from other works of Bonhoeffer which tie
into the devotional for the day.
A theme is given to each week, week one being prayerful
reflection, week two self-denial, week three temptation, week four suffering,
week five the cross and finally devotions for Holy Week. To draw the reader towards the “why” of using
Bonhoeffer’s works, the editor notes that “These reflections have been chosen
especially for Lent and Easter, a time when the liturgical calendar highlights several
themes of Bonhoeffer’s beliefs and teachings:
that self-deinal is a necessary aspect of a Christian life; that the
cross is central to human understanding; and that, without the atonement, every
one of us would stand forever in the role of Judas. Overall, the theme of suffering for Christ
runs through Bonhoeffer’s work as one of the “costs” of discipleship. (Editor’s
Preface)
To help establish the context of the writings, the editor
provides a brief biography of Bonhoeffer’s life in the preface. Many
of the secondary texts are drawn from letters and works written during his
imprisonment and prior to his untimely execution by the Nazi state. An example of this can be found in the bonus
material for the first Sunday in Lent, an emotionally moving letter written by
his fiancée, Maria Von Wedemeyer regarding the tragedy and hope of his
situation, that we can commune with God and one another in spite of physical
barriers and like the great paschal story, there is more to life than this
present earth. “My dearest Dietrich,
every morning at six, when we both fold our hands in prayer, we know that we
can have great faith, not only in each other but far, far above and beyond
that. And then you can’t be sad anymore
either, can you?”
My biggest struggle with the general structure of this book
is that the primary devotional texts drawn from the various works of Bonhoeffer
aren’t cited. In fact, I had to do some
digging through the front of the book to find that these specific texts were
already printed in another collection. The editor does not tell even from where in
the other devotional these texts are taken; one can only assume that they come from
the correlating Lenten and Easter texts.
As one who enjoys looking to the original sources, I struggle with the
amount of legwork that one would have to do to find from where specific
quotations come. Additionally, the bonus
material is cited, but it isn’t plain at first whether or not the primary
devotional and the bonus material come from the same source: they do not.
The Scripture references, though, are clearly sourced.
Structure aside, the selections chosen are mostly very good
and appropriate for the selected themes of the week. For the Ash Wednesday devotion under the
first week theme, “Prayerful Reflection,” we are given a text from The Cost of
Discipleship which sets the tone for the narrative scope of this devotional collection: “Jesus
emphasizes that each of us has his or her own cross, ready, appointed, and approximately
measured by God.”
From there the editor chooses readings about the power of
meditation, the ever-presence of God and enduring hope in our faith. From the devotion for the first Monday in Lent,
“A faith that does not hope is sick…We will one day have to be ashamed, not of
our hope, but of our miserable and anxious hopelessness that trusts nothing to
God, that in false humility does not grasp where God’s promises are given, that
is resigned to this life and cannot look forward to God’s eternal power and
glory.” The editor then connects this
passage with Jeremiah 29:11, “For
surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare
and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
As with any attempt to connect Scripture with other writings,
sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
The difficulty of assessing this is that much of its related quality is
subjective; to me, the devotion and the Scripture do not seem to connect overly
well aside from sharing the word “hope.”
However, this may contain a strong connection to other people and serve
as a very meaningful pairing.
On the other hand, I believe that the editor made a very
strong connection between the secondary devotional material and the Scripture
reference for the second Thursday in Lent.
The theme for this week’s devotions is “Self-Denial.” In a letter to Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer
writes: “You must know that I still have never
regretted for a moment my return in 1939, nor anything which then
followed. It all happened in full
daylight and with good conscience. The
fact that I sit here now (in prison) I reckon also as participation in the fate
of Germany , to which I committed myself.”
Dietrich felt convinced that he could never again serve the German
people if he did not suffer with them.
The editor connects this act of self-denial to Paul’s description of
Jesus in Philippians 2:5-8: “and being
found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-even
death on a cross.” Jesus, through his
own actions asserted that the path to ultimate service of others was denial of
self. Bonhoeffer’s decision to remain in
Germany, then, is an awe inspiring modern day example of fulfilling this form
of self-denial. As a reader, I could see
this connection and recognize the full scope of Jesus’ calling, that true acts sacrifice
and self-denial are much more difficult than giving up chocolate for Lent.
And so through these types of connections and many others in
this work, the reader can gain a deeper sense of the terrible journey to the
cross, the awe of the resurrection, and the heavy implications of following
after Jesus. In this way, the devotional
succeeds.
If there are areas in which the reader cannot make such a
strong connection, there are many good one-shot devotionals, bonus selections,
and Scripture references.
For instance, in the primary devotional text for the third
Wednesday of Lent, “In the Wilderness,” Bonhoeffer writes:
“God
removes from his son all human and creaturely help. The hour oftemptation is supposed to find Jesus weak, alone, and
hungry. God leaves human beings alone in
temptation…
What
must remain incomprehensible to all human, ethical, and religious thought is
that in temptation God does not
reveal himself as the one who is gracious and near, who arms us with all gifts of the spirit. Rather, God forsakes us and is quite distant
from us. We are in the wilderness.”
Despite the sometimes experienced hopelessness in our own
stories, being able to connect with Jesus’ narrative, as Bonhoeffer does here,
allows for a mystical, trans-generational commiseration on temptation, that
these things we experience are not unique.
Jesus, in his journey towards crucifixion, experienced temptation, and because
of His sacrifice we can ultimately experience freedom from this “wilderness.”
Reviewing any devotional material can be tricky; I recognize
that this is not one cohesive narrative, rather it is a collection of snippets
from other narratives, structured together thematically for shor, inspirational
reading. The editor set about a noble
task in working with Bonhoeffer, though; to provide a deeper alternative to the
many Easter devotionals out there that read more like “Christianity Lite” instead
of touching on the true darkness of the season.
There are certainly flaws in the structuring and some of the pairing, at
least from my perspective, but if you are looking for some devotional readings
to turn your heart towards the cross that come from one of the premier
theologians of this last century, this is more than a good start.
For me, this wasn't an awkward
practice at all because it was expected of everyone there. And because we weren't allowed to talk, this
kept us focused on the purposes at hand, namely prayer and spiritual reading,
rather than getting caught up in small talk. Of course, we couldn't have
possibly forgotten this rule, since there were signs every several feet that
read something like “Silence is Spoken Here.”
