By Charles Gardner —
When the Jews of ancient Persia were threatened with genocide, they were mercifully rescued by one of their own.
But Queen Esther’s bravery was inspired by her guardian Mordecai, whose challenge was both direct and severe: “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
Thankfully, Esther did not waver, and this week’s Purim feast rightly celebrates that great deliverance.
But modern-day Persia (Iran) is still a serious threat to God’s chosen people. And yet, as we are all too aware, global antisemitism now stalks the Jewish nation as a dark, demonic shadow.
In God’s perfect timing, however, the new movie Bonhoeffer challenges those, especially Christians, who remain silent at this time on the hot potato of Israel. And appropriately enough, the trailer to the film used Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence as its theme song.
For when hundreds of synagogues were burnt to the ground and Jewish people were herded off to concentration camps in overcrowded cattle trucks, there was silence among the Christians – apart from a precious few including Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Yet the German church as a whole – heavily influenced by Reformation leader Martin Luther – responded to such outrage with deafening silence. A church that was supposedly ‘reformed’ from the bad old ways of an institution which denied faith alone as the key to salvation.
Of course, on a natural level, believers had reason to fear the reaction of the brutal Nazis if they dared plead mercy for the Jews – the very people who gave them Jesus and the Bible.
But Jesus clearly taught that his followers should take up their own cross; in other words, that they should be prepared to die for his sake. But they failed miserably and betrayed their Savior in the process. God’s chosen people were being sent to die like lambs to the slaughter, and hardly a whisper of protest was uttered by those who had so richly benefited from them!
Except, of course, from the likes of Bonhoeffer, who paid the ultimate price for doing so, executed on a noose for his stand within just a month of the war ending. Harrowing yet profoundly challenging, it’s a movie every Christian should see. After he boldly denounced the Nazis from the pulpit, his adoring mum – so proud of his great courage – said: “You painted a target on your chest which got bigger with every word you spoke.”
The choice facing Esther was stark. If she remained silent, help for Israel would come from another place, but she and her family would perish. This thought is also echoed on a national level by the prophet who wrote: “For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you [Israel] will perish…” (Isaiah 60:12)
But do we today score any better than the German church “passing by on the other side” of the road like the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan?
No. Today’s UK pastors have failed the Jews by remaining largely silent amidst the wickedness of antisemitism breaking out all around us. Our pulpits rarely, if ever, mention the perilous predicament of today’s Jews – and I don’t just mean Israel.
A shocking new survey has revealed a significant proportion of young British Christians hold antisemitic views.
It is also most apt that, in view of the Bonhoeffer film’s message, both Simon & Garfunkel are Jewish, and as their song puts it, “silence like a cancer grows”.
As Christianity is effectively Jewish with virtually the entire Bible written by Jewish authors, such indifference makes no sense. It is a cowardly cop-out from our calling as disciples of the Jewish Messiah, and it must stop – or else our nation will come under the judgment of those who have cursed rather than blessed Israel (Genesis 12:3, Numbers 24:9, Joel 3:2).
Bonhoeffer spent time in New York and London in the 1930s and could have escaped the consequences of his beliefs, but he said: “I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people.”
He surrendered himself to his Savior’s call, aged just 39, with the haunting words: “I am ready to meet my destiny.” And who is there among us who is willing to fill his boots, and walk his path?
On a happier note – and Purim is after all a time of rejoicing – let’s reflect on how the Jews, once rescued by a godly royal, will soon be saved by the King of Kings, Yeshua HaMashiach.
