Dying to Come Alive: Lessons from the Life of a Modern MartyrSample

On April 5, 1943, Bonhoeffer was at home. Around noon, he called the Dohnanyis. Their phone was answered by an unfamiliar man’s voice. Bonhoeffer hung up. He knew what was happening: the Gestapo had finally made their move. They were at the Dohnanyis, searching the house. Bonhoeffer calmly went next door to see his sister Ursula Schleicher and told her what had happened and what would likely happen next: the Gestapo would arrive and arrest him too. She prepared a large meal for him, and then Bonhoeffer went back home to put his papers in order, since the Gestapo would be having a good look around, as was their habit. He had prepared for this moment for a long time and even left a few notes specifically for their benefit.

Then he returned to the Schleichers and waited. At four o’clock Bonhoeffer’s father came over and told him that two men wished to speak with him. They were upstairs in his room. It was Judge Advocate Manfred Roeder and a Gestapo official named Sonderegger. Bonhoeffer met them, and taking his Bible with him, he was escorted to their black Mercedes and taken away. He would never return. . . .

The wheels for Bonhoeffer’s execution were set in motion on April 4, 1945 when a significant chunk of co-conspirator Wilhelm Canaris’s diary turned up by happenstance at Zossen, where Dohnanyi’s files had been hidden. The next day this incriminating material was in Hitler’s hands in Berlin, and what the madman read in its pages catapulted him far beyond the borders of reason. . . .

We know that Bonhoeffer thought of death as the last station on the road to freedom. . . . Even if millions have seen Bonhoeffer’s death as tragic and as a prematurely ended life, we can be certain that he did not see it that way at all. . . .

Bonhoeffer thought it the plain duty of the Christian—and the privilege and honor—to suffer with those who suffered. 

In what ways has God helped you stay strong during difficult times?