Yesterday, I finished reading a book: “Tortured for Christ”, which I had previously read and was moved by when a young Christian, mindful of how Christians suffered under Communism. The book had earlier been given to my wife by a Romanian Lady who attends our church.  Today, another friend posted the following text, titled FORGIVENESS, LOVE AND DEATH, on his Facebook page …  

Lutheran Pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, wrote an account of the things he witnessed as a prisoner in Communist Romania. His extraordinary and moving account of what happened in the prison one Christmas Eve between an Orthodox Priest and his torturer is well worth a read: “When I was in jail I fell very, very ill. I had tuberculosis of the whole surface of both lungs, and four vertebrae were attacked by tuberculosis. I also had intestinal tuberculosis, diabetes, heart failure, jaundice, and other sicknesses I can’t even remember. I was near to death. At my right hand was a priest by the name of Iscu. He was abbot of a monastery. This man, perhaps in his forties, had been so tortured he was near to death. But his face was serene. He spoke about his hope of heaven, about his love of Christ, about his faith. He radiated joy. On my left side was the Communist torturer who had tortured this priest almost to death. He had been arrested by his own comrades. Don’t believe the newspapers when they say that the Communists only hate Christians or Jews—it’s not true. They simply hate. They hate everybody. They hate Jews, they hate Christians, they hate anti-Semites, they hate anti-Christians, they hate everybody. One Communist hates the other Communist. They quarrel among themselves, and when they quarrel one Communist with the other, they put the other one in jail and torture him just like a Christian, and they beat him. And so it happened that the Communist torturer who had tortured this priest nearly to death had been tortured nearly to death by his comrades. And he was dying near me. His soul was in agony. During the night he would awaken me, saying, “Pastor, please pray for me. I can’t die, I have committed such terrible crimes.” Then I saw a miracle. I saw the agonized priest calling two other prisoners. And leaning on their shoulders, slowly, slowly he walked past my bed, sat on the bedside of this murderer, and caressed his head—I will never forget this gesture. I watched a murdered man caressing his murderer! That is love—he found a caress for him. The priest said to the man, “You are young; you did not know what you were doing. I love you with all my heart.” But he did not just say the words. You can say “love,” and it’s just a word of four letters. But he really loved. “I love you with all my heart.” Then he went on, “If I who am a sinner can love you so much, imagine Christ, who is Love Incarnate, how much He loves you! And all the Christians whom you have tortured, know that they forgive you, they love you, and Christ loves you. He wishes you to be saved much more than you wish to be saved. You wonder if your sins can be forgiven. He wishes to forgive your sins more than you wish your sins to be forgiven. He desires for you to be with Him in heaven much more than you wish to be in heaven with Him. He is Love. You only need to turn to Him and repent.” In this prison cell in which there was no possibility of privacy, I overheard the confession of the murderer to the murdered. Life is more thrilling than a novel—no novelist has ever written such a thing. The murdered—near to death—received the confession of the murderer. The murdered gave absolution to his murderer. They prayed together, embraced each other, and the priest went back to his bed. Both men died that same night. It was a Christmas Eve. But it was not a Christmas Eve in which we simply remembered that two thousand years ago Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It was a Christmas Eve during which Jesus was born in the heart of a Communist murderer. These are things which I have seen with my own eyes.” ~ Richard Wurmbrand.

According to Wikipedia: “Richard Wurmbrand, also known as Nicolai Ionescu (24 March 1909 – 17 February 2001) was a Romanian Evangelical Lutheran priest, and professor of Jewish descent. In 1948, having become a Christian ten years before, he publicly said Communism and Christianity were incompatible. Wurmbrand preached at bomb shelters and rescued Jews during World War II. He experienced imprisonment and torture by the Communist regime of Romania, which maintained a policy of state atheism. After serving a total of fourteen years, he was ransomed for $10,000. His colleagues in Romania urged him to leave the country and work for religious freedom from a location less personally dangerous. After spending time in Norway and England, he and his wife Sabina, who had also been imprisoned, emigrated to America and dedicated the rest of their lives to publicizing and helping Christians who are persecuted for their beliefs. He wrote more than 18 books, the most widely known being Tortured for Christ.”

It seemed to me more than a coincidence that I should have read and finished a book written by a man I hadn’t given much thought to for a long time and then the following day (today) my friend should share something that represents the significance of the man’s message along the lines of some of my own thoughts upon reading “Tortured for Christ”. All this is at a time when I had been thinking that even in my own country the religious freedom we have long taken for granted is being threatened as never before. Moreover, today as he does on most days, a member of my church shared a prayer point from the Barnabas Fund that daily shares prayer updates relating to one of the many countries in the world where Christians have to endure all sorts of suffering for practicing their faith. Often the ideology sparking of this persecution of Christians who don’t toe the line with that of those in power is other than Communism e.g. Islam, Hinduism and even godless wokeism.

There are many things that moved me as a result of reading this book, besides the underlying message of my friend’s Facebook share concerning how true believers, despite losing almost everything materially speaking can show such magnanimity to those at the forefront of causing their suffering. There is much more to be taken away from reading the book of course, such as the examples of Christians having to endure suffering as Jesus, the apostles and the prophets had said would happen, and while Communism no longer holds sway in Eastern Europe the attack on Christians because of their beliefs happens in many places elsewhere as is the temptation and inducement, often succumbed to, to ditch true Christianity, sometimes adopting a counterfeit version – all for an easier life.   

If there is a lesson that we can take away from all this, it is the worldly wisdom of “hope for the best and prepare for the worse”, including the strong possibility of the Church in the West driven underground. I know things will get a whole lot better when Christ returns to planet earth and we need to be prepared for that eventuality. But before that – who knows? I have gone on record saying while I would like to think the world will improve, especially as more people wake up to bad things going on, but the more I watch the less sure I am that will be the case, especially as I also believe before Christ comes there will be the emergence of the Antichrist. We should in the meantime take heart from the example shown by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand and that of the faithful Christian martyrs, whose story he tells, who saw something much better than anything on offer outside of Christ, and were prepared to pay the price, including losing their life and those of their family.