DAILY DEVOTIONAL – March 26, 2020
“Who Am I?“
Prayer: Almighty God, You are the maker of all things new. We praise You for who we are and who You have made us to be in Christ Jesus, Your Son, Our Lord. Strengthen our faith Father, and may the hope You have put in our hearts shine forth to glorify Your name. Amen.
Scripture: 1 John 3:1-2
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Devotional – “Who Am I?”
I think that few who have knowledge of the field would argue against the statement that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the most brilliant theological minds of the modern era. Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor who was the founder of the Confessing Church and perhaps became most famous for his staunch and active resistance against Hitler and the Nazi regime. Bonhoeffer bravely worked under cover for the German resistance movement in order to reveal the atrocities occurring in his homeland, and using his ecumenical contacts abroad, hoped to convince Western allies to intervene.
In April of 1943 Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. After being transferred to a Nazi concentration camp, Bonhoeffer was tried with the injustice you would expect from Hitler’s dictatorship, judged to be guilty of being involved with the July 20th assassination attempt on Hitler’s life, and was hanged to death.
While in prison at Tegel, Bonhoeffer was able to win the hearts of several of his guards through the proclamation of the Gospel message, and with their help, he was able to correspond with his church family on the outside. Later, these letters of Bonhoeffer would be put together in a collection that would be published and titled “Letters and Papers from Prison.” Amongst his writings from prison is a poem entitled “Who Am I?”. I would like to share that poem with you for today’s devotional.
You can imagine that Bonhoeffer had a lot of time to think, and a lot to think about while in prison. When everything you know in life is stripped away all at once and you are left only with your thoughts, the questions that matter most in life become painfully clear. For Bonhoeffer, one of those most important questions was who he was. As I am sure you will agree once you hear/read his poem, the answer to that question is what enabled Bonhoeffer to remain faithful to Christ to the very end.
Here is Bonhoeffer’s poem, “Who Am I?”
Who am I?
They often tell me that I step out of my cell
calm, and cheerful, and poised,
like a lord stepping out of his manor.
Who am I?
They often tell me that I speak with my guards
freely, and friendly, and clearly, as though I were the one in charge.
Who am I?
They also tell me that I bear the days of calamity
serenely, and smiling, and proud,
as one who is accustomed to victory.
Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
restless, yearning, and sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for breath, as if someone were strangling me,
starving for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at arbitrary decisions and the pettiest insult,
consumed with waiting for great things,
helplessly fearing for friends far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to do anything,
weary and ready to take leave of it all.
Who am I?
This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite,
and in my own eyes a contemptible, sniveling weakling?
or is there something still within me like a defeated army,
fleeing in dismay from a victory already won?
Who am I?
They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, you know me, O God, I am yours.
You know friends, you don’t have to be in a German prison to be confronted with these questions or feelings Bonhoeffer wrestles with in his poem; we only need to be honest about ourselves and sit quietly in reflection about the sin and depravity that exists in all of our hearts, and look with honest eyes upon our life. We will soon see that we are indeed by nature prisoners to our sin, and to the death that our sin has deserved.
In Romans 7, the Apostle Paul wrestles with this very thing when he says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Yes, my friends, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ who atoned for our sin, who rose again to conquer death and give us new life in His resurrection! Who are we? We are the children of the One True God who have been raised with Jesus our Lord. Even in those times when we feel we don’t even know ourselves, we can take sure hope in knowing that by God’s grace and love in Christ we are no longer defined by the sin and struggle that exists within us. How can we be so sure? John 1:12 says, “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” We know we are children of God because we believe in Jesus, the One God has sent. We know we have been born of God because 1 Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”
No one and no thing in this life can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, and knowing Christ as Lord, the words of St. John in our text for today apply directly to us. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.”
Thanks for joining me for another daily devotion, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
