In the winter of 1940, the German...
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation...
Isaiah 52:7
In the winter of 1940, the German Pastor Wilhelm Busch (1897–1966) had once again been captured by the Secret State Police. He was sitting in his cell, it was cold and quiet, and he was dreading the long, sleepless night. Then suddenly he heard, “Hey! New guy!” and then, “Climb up to the window and whisper out. Then we can talk.”
So Busch pushed the table in front of the window, put the stool on it and climbed up on top. Now, standing up, he could reach the bars of the basement window. If he pulled himself up by them and whispered out of the window, the other prisoners could hear him, because a short distance from the building was a wall from which the spoken words reverberated. He learned who his fellow prisoners were: a really motley company! And he heard about their distress, their fear and their despair. – Now, night after night, he brought them the gospel: he built a tower to climb on and then pull himself up by the bars. And while he hung there like a spider monkey, he preached. After a Bible verse came a short explanation – depending on whether his strength was sufficient, because after a while he had to let go of the grating to catch his breath. They were reasonably lengthy sermons, but he writes in retrospect, “I didn’t see any of my listeners, but I could literally sense the strained listening.”
The writers of this calendar do not see any of their readers or listeners either. But just like Wilhelm Busch, they are convinced that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be preached and explained. That is because even today, the Bible answers people’s problems and questions – in a very personal and concrete way!
Today’s reading: 2 Kings 25:1-17 · Psalms 111:1-10
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