Speaking into Crisis
January 1, 2002
I have long been romanced by the story of Paul's bold intervention among the soldiers and sailors in charge of a ship that is breaking up in the middle of a Mediterranean storm. Having exhausted their routine responses to severe conditions, they had given up hope of being saved.
Enter Paul! "Men," (and I'm paraphrasing here) "you should have listened to me earlier when I said not to leave port, but you didn't. But don't be afraid. I've received a word from God. The good news is that no life is to be lost; the bad news is that the ship has made its last voyage. Keep courageous, men; God will do as he's promised."
Here was a voice speaking confidently into crisis, offering a message that steadies people and provides reliable direction. It's an apt subject for our times in which people are scared, wonder of the future, and speculate on their personal security. Not always the most important issues, ultimately, but nevertheless the ones on people's minds.
In times of crisis, people listen for a voice. They're tuned to receive messages of hope, courage, God's purposes, and meaning. Augustine's was such a voice when Rome was coming apart. Luther's was heard when the Holy Roman Empire was crumbling. Wesley's spoke into the turbulent times of industrial revolution.
More recently two insightful voices spoke into the crisis in Germany during the 1930s and '40s. Amid the economic, political, and military upheaval, only a few stood to speak for God. Among them: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Helmut Thielicke. The two stand like human bookends at the beginning and the end of World War II. Bonhoeffer's greatest years were from 1932 to 1945 while Thielicke ascended to his prime in the mid-war years and those that followed.
It was given to Bonhoeffer ...
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