For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” [1]
Chances are you won't find these words printed on the glossy cover of any seminary recruiting booklet. And chances are, this quote isn’t posted all over your church’s social media platforms announcing the upcoming new member class. But maybe they should be. I can imagine these words near the baptismal font, over the church's exit doors, or tattooed on my forearm, where I can see them and wear them every day.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s words, written in 1937, still stand. They stick with us. They give us pause. They help us ponder our Christian life. Why? Because he’s right. Bonhoeffer’s writings on discipleship, suffering, the cross, and death still ring true because that is the reality of our life in Christ.
As we continue through Lent, the church calendar is daily leading us closer and closer to Good Friday. I’m writing this on Ash Wednesday, and Bonhoeffer’s words hit home. An ashen cross adorns my forehead. Mortality stares back at me more clearly. My sin is as deep and dark as the grave and as stubborn and black as the inked inscription on my forehead. Over Jesus’ cross, the sign bore witness: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. On Ash Wednesday, and in Lent, the sign still bears witness: here is a chief of sinners.
Bonhoeffer teaches us that discipleship begins – just like the season of Lent begins – with death. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Discipleship begins with the death of baptism. Yes, there’s resurrection in that holy, Spirit-churned water, and that font filled with promise, but first, there is death. There’s the flood. The Red Sea. The Jordan River. There, our old Adam is drowned and dies. From that moment forward, our life as baptized disciples, as saints soaked in the saving blood of Jesus, as one who is sanctified in the death and resurrection of Christ, we live by dying.
For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational.
Bonhoeffer is right. When Christ calls us to faith, calls us his saints, calls us his chosen people and a holy nation, he does so by killing us and making us alive again. He brings down, and he raises up. He puts us to death and raises us to new life in Jesus.
The Christian life is no stranger to suffering and the cross. It’s beginning, end, and everything in between are marked by the cross. Bonhoeffer knew this and lived this all too well. From his early resistance to Hitler and the Nazi party to his running an illegal seminary in Finkenwald, from his time of imprisonment at Flossenburg, to his martyrdom by execution in 1945, Bonhoeffer’s life was no stranger to suffering and the cross.
For Bonhoeffer, Christ crucified, and the cross of the Christian life were not of peripheral importance, but foundational. The cross was not one symbol among many for the Christian, but the epicenter of life and faith. The cross wasn’t a reminder that God has forsaken his people, but that he is closest of all when we are suffering, for he himself suffered with us and for us. For Bonhoeffer, the crosses we bear in the Christian life do not mean God is absent, far from it, but that he is near to those who suffer. And still bears our suffering with us and for us.
“The one who has found Jesus Christ on the cross knows how wondrously God hides in this world and how he is just there, closest, where we believe him to be farthest.” [2]
This is one of many reasons Bonhoeffer’s words and works still speak to us nearly a century later, living in a different place and time.
We think that the Christian life is like the swell of technology, always getting better, faster, and more advanced. But Bonhoeffer teaches us that to be a disciple of Jesus means to drop dead.
We tend to think of life in terms of good to better, or bad to good, or some variation of that idea. As if the Christian life is like the warning on the sign at the start of the rollercoaster line: you must be this tall to ride this ride. We tend to pull a page out of the architectural plans of the builders of the Tower of Babel: we’re all trying to make a name for ourselves one way or another.
Once I get stronger, then I’ll run that race.
As soon as I work up the courage, I’ll say I’m sorry.
When I feel better, then I’ll clean the garage. And so on.
We think that the Christian life is like the swell of technology, always getting better, faster, and more advanced. But Bonhoeffer teaches us that to be a disciple of Jesus means to drop dead. To die to ourselves. Die to our sin. Die to our selfish, self-serving desires. Die to our pride. Die to the myth of a free will. Die in Jesus. And there, in Christ and in the cross and death of Christ, to find life. Or better yet, where Life finds you, raises you up, pulls you out of the grave, breathes new life into your lungs, and says to you what he said to Jairus’ daughter: “little girl, I say to you, arise.”
“Only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ means both death and life. The call to discipleship, the baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, is both death and life.” [3]
Bonhoeffer opens our eyes to see the church, and our Christian life, not like a gym where we flex our spiritual muscles and exist to pump each other up. Nor is it an all-expenses-paid, all-inclusive, all-you-can-drink cruise through life without suffering, but a life lived in Christ crucified and under his cross. Nor is it a rehabilitation center - less like physical therapy and more like Lazarus being called out of his tomb. Nor is it even a hospital, though we are all sinners in need of Jesus, the Great Physician of body and soul. Our life in Christ is more like a morgue or a hospice ward, where the dying care for the dying.
In this perplexing paradox rests Christ’s promise: that in his death there is life. In his defeat on the cross is your victory. In his blood, agony, and suffering, is your comfort, consolation, and salvation. In suffering, God is near. In sorrow, Christ is our consolation. In our crosses, there is Christ bringing death, but also life. In our crosses, there is Christ, the God who bears.
“For God is a God who bears. The Son of God bore our flesh, he bore the cross, he bore our sins, this making atonement for us. In the same way, his followers are also called upon to bear and that is precisely what it means to be a Christian.” [4]
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, New York: Simon Schuster, 1959, p. 89.
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Mystery of Easter, p. 34.
[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 90.
[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, p. 92.
