Death and Freedom
After exploring the subjects of discipline, action, and suffering, Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to the final and ultimate step toward freedom death itself.
Come now, highest of feasts on the way to freedom eternal,
Death, strike off the fetters, break down the walls that oppress us,
Our bedazzled soul and our ephemeral body,
That we may see at last the sight which here was not vouchsafed us.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action, suffering.
Now as we die we see you and know you at last, face to face.462
Throughout this devotional are stories of miraculous survival and answered prayers. However, we know that many prayers, from our human perspective, were not answered. During World War II thousands of soldiers and sailors paid the ultimate price and did not return home. Bonhoeffer here speaks for these brave men and women, revealing the ultimate survival that was theirs as Christians: eternal life with their Lord and Savior. Only a Christian can face death with this joyful hope. We know what waits for us. And only when we part with this temporary dwelling place of earth can we enjoy our homecoming reunion with the Lord and all his saints who have gone before us.
The apostle Paul eagerly anticipated meeting Jesus again face to face: “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). And yet, he did not allow himself to dwell on that heavenly future so much that he neglected his earthly tasks: “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it”(2 Corinthians 5:9). We should also anticipate death with confidence, knowing it is the passage to heaven; and yet continue in the good works God has given us to do here on Earth until he calls us home. (JG)
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
—Philippians 1:21