Continuing the dialogue.....
Bonhoeffer
Dear Friend,
As a theater ministry, Acacia seeks to offer high quality theater, which affords the opportunity to view one's life in relationship to the fullness of God's truth. We pray that our shows offer an occasion for thanksgiving, growth, enjoyment and understanding. Without detracting from the theater experience, which we hope you enjoyed, and obviously without foreknowledge of topics dealt with in the "Talk Back," we would like to continue the dialogue by sharing some of the thoughts that the board of directors discussed after reading this play.
“When Christ calls a man He bids him come and die” The story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the story of a man who died to self and was very much alive in Christ.
The play you have just seen paints the picture of a man who was real. He had a tremendous faith but at the same time struggled with doubts. Dietrich lived at a time and in a country where evil was rampant. In spite of this he never gave up hope.
Dietrich: What a curse!
Eberhard: What do you mean?
Dietrich: The brokenness in this world. Thank heavens, sin has not broken God’s will to sustain and regain us. He has a purpose for us in life.
What was God’s purpose for Dietrich’s life? We know from his writings that Dietrich wrestled with God on this question. What was God’s role for the Christian, for him as a Christian, in the resistance? If God wanted Dietrich to fight, then his great desire to live a “normal life” would have to be set aside. He came to realize that God was calling him to another kind of life. God was calling him to follow in the steps of Christ.
Dohnanyi: I find nothing wrong with wanting a normal existence.
Dietrich: Yes, as God created us. But because of the Fall we can’t rely on the normal to be normative. Christ challenges the normal. His norm was and is the cross.
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” Matthew 16:24,25
Dietrich lost his life for Christ and therefore truly found it. What was it that made him willing to pour out his life for Christ? Dietrich was focused on eternity; he knew the hope and joy to which he had been called. He wrote these words:
“Joy dwells with God; it descends from God and seizes spirit, soul, and body, and where this joy has grasped us it grows greater, carries us away, opens closed doors. There is a joy which knows nothing of sorrow, need, and anxiety of the heart; it has no duration, and it can only drug one for the moment. The joy of God has been through the poverty of the crib and the distress of the cross; therefore it is insuperable, irrefutable. It does not deny the distress where it is, but finds God in the midst of it, indeed precisely there; it does not contest the most grievous sin, but finds forgiveness in just this way; it looks death in the face, yet finds life in death itself. We are concerned with this joy which has overcome. It alone is worth believing; it alone helps and heals.”
May you be inspired to follow in the steps of Dietrich Bonhoffer, to follow in the steps of Christ. May you know the hope and joy to which you have been called and be “certain of the things you cannot see.”
"No one in the world can change truth. What we can do and should do is seek it and serve it when it is found. The real conflict is inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the catacombs of concentration camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are victories on the battle-field if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?" - Maximilian Kolbe.
Sincerely,
Board of Directors
Acacia Theatre Company
