Why Schindler Got It

Friday, December 2, 2022

Give your love of justice to the king, O God, and righteousness to the king’s son.  Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly.  May the mountains yield prosperity for all, and may the hills be fruitful.  Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy, and to crush their oppressors.  May they fear you as long as the sun shines, as long as the moon remains in the sky.  Yes, forever!  Psalm 72:1-5

Adolph Hitler was a king (of sorts).  He did nothing as holy as rescuing children of the needy; rather, he had them killed in concentration camps, and shot in the streets by his ruthless SS officers.  Oskar Schindler was a German businessman, capitalizing on the Nazi need for military weapons and supplies.  He used cheap Jewish labor to make a fortune.  Then one day he saw the little Jewish girl in a red coat.  The next day he saw her corpse loaded on a truck with many other bodies.  Schindler’s whole life became a mission to protect people from Hitler’s obsession with exterminating Jews from the planet.  In the end Schindler saved nearly 1,000. 

There is nothing that evokes compassion that will move most humans like seeing what Schindler saw.  A greedy businessman does not mend his ways when confronted with difficult social conditions, caused by, or exploited by his business practices.  He is unmoved by ethics or morality.  But the stark reality of a human life, barely embarked on breathing, has the embryo of change for even the most hardened of souls.  Schindler got it (the compassion to do right) because life’s most poignant reality, our human connection with God, pierced his hard heart.

King David prayed the prayer recorded in Psalm 72 near the end of his life.  He had lived long enough, sinned big enough, and learned life’s lessons well enough, to understand the God-connection we all have.  As part of the created order, all human beings are “children” of the Almighty.  We’re related.  David’s prayer was that the wisdom, courage, and compassion he’d learned, would now be passed along – and take hold – in his son, Solomon.  It would be necessary to see the nation through lean times, and help the nation be humble before God in their high times. 

Adolph Hitler, baptized as a youth into the Lutheran Church, did his best to stamp out the image and lineage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and David.  And it was done in the (supposed) holy name of preserving the purity of God’s created order.  It took a momentary confrontation of a child in a red coat with a Nazi-supporting, hardened businessman, to engage the holiness of God on a nightmare against humanity.  As King David had a prophet (Nathan[1]) who confronted him with his sin, and as Adam and Eve in the garden, Schindler heard the still small voice of God from out of the whirlwind of war’s madness saying …where are you…what are you doing?  He had to answer.

For You Today  

Oskar Schindler overlooked a lot to get to the top of the business world.  One day he could not get a little girl in a red coat out of his mind. 

What have you seen lately, or what will you see today, to remind you who, and whose you are?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Choosing   and   What to Do

Images:  Title Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=723965   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Read 2 Samuel 12 for the account of Nathan the prophet confronting King David with his sins.

The Scroll

[i][ii]

Thursday, May 9, 2019

Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne.  There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals.  And I saw a strong angel, who shouted with a loud voice: “Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and open it?”  But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it.  Then I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll and read it.  But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, “Stop weeping!  Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David’s throne, has won the victory.  He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.”  Then I saw a Lamb that looked as if it had been slaughtered, but it was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders.  He had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the sevenfold Spirit of God that is sent out into every part of the earth.  He stepped forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne.  And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.  And they sang a new song with these words:  “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it.  For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.  And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God.  And they will reign on the earth.”  Revelation 5:1-10

It's a moment long-hoped-for; it’s that which you know deep down is going to happen, but it’s been so long since first that hope entered your mind, and then seeped down into your soul.  It’s surreal, strange, odd, and dreamlike, this hope of all things becoming new…stepping-into privileged, rarified air.

John’s vision carries him to God’s throne room, where the scroll of God is playing central role.  Throughout the ages of humanity, no person has been, or is worthy to open that scroll; not Moses, Elijah, nor any of the prophets, patriarchs, apostles or politicians have the resume’ to even approach the throne, let alone handle the eternal record of humankind’s sin. 

And John weeps!  He weeps for his own sins, and ours.  If sin cannot be cleansed, washed away in a flood of righteous mercy, there is nothing else but judgment in which all will perish, for there is none righteous, no, not one![iii]  But, one of the 24 elders, perhaps Peter, or Andrew, maybe Joseph or Abraham, steps forward and bellows, stop the weeping…there IS one…ONE!

And, suddenly, the moment is electric with hope fulfilled.  The Lamb, Jesus Christ steps forward to receive and fulfill the words written in the scroll of God.  Hope will not only be eternal, it will be lived, because the incontestable promise of God is here; it is now, not someday!

The long haul of daily living and hoping for the realization of a long-held dream to be now, not then, is something placed inside us as a hard-wire.  We humans are, above all else, people of hope.  Prisoners of the holocaust speak of losing hope.  When every shred of life had been sucked-out of one of their comrades, they would give away their possessions, smoke their last cigarette, climb into their bed, turn to the wall…and never wake up.  That is why John wept; if there was no worthy person to save us, hope was just a mirage, an illusion that would vanish like the morning mist.

But this drama in Heaven is better than any Hollywood movie ending, because this is not an ending…it’s the opening of eternity.

For You Today

Is your “hope-tank” running on empty?  Look up; your redemption is close…and it’s certain…it’s written in God’s scroll!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

[iii] Romans 3:10

When the House Turns Upside Down

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Tuesday, April 30, 2019

Then King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and Mordecai the Jew, “I have given Esther the property of Haman, and he has been impaled on a pole because he tried to destroy the Jews.  Now go ahead and send a message to the Jews in the king’s name, telling them whatever you want, and seal it with the king’s signet ring.  But remember that whatever has already been written in the king’s name and sealed with his signet ring can never be revoked.”  So on June 25 the king’s secretaries were summoned, and a decree was written exactly as Mordecai dictated.  It was sent to the Jews and to the highest officers, the governors, and the nobles of all the 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia.  The decree was written in the scripts and languages of all the peoples of the empire, including that of the Jews.  The decree was written in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the king’s signet ring.  Mordecai sent the dispatches by swift messengers, who rode fast horses especially bred for the king’s service.  The king’s decree gave the Jews in every city authority to unite to defend their lives.  They were allowed to kill, slaughter, and annihilate anyone of any nationality or province who might attack them or their children and wives, and to take the property of their enemies.  The day chosen for this event throughout all the provinces of King Xerxes was March 7 of the next year.  A copy of this decree was to be issued as law in every province and proclaimed to all peoples, so that the Jews would be ready to take revenge on their enemies on the appointed day.  So urged on by the king’s command, the messengers rode out swiftly on fast horses bred for the king’s service.  The same decree was also proclaimed in the fortress of Susa.  Then Mordecai left the king’s presence, wearing the royal robe of blue and white, the great crown of gold, and an outer cloak of fine linen and purple. And the people of Susa celebrated the new decree.  The Jews were filled with joy and gladness and were honored everywhere.  In every province and city, wherever the king’s decree arrived, the Jews rejoiced and had a great celebration and declared a public festival and holiday.  And many of the people of the land became Jews themselves, for they feared what the Jews might do to them.  Esther 8:7-17

The story of Esther turns one of our naïve house theories upside-down, that of an instant-ready Heaven, where there is nothing more to be accomplished; the principle of the Laws of the Medes and Persians doesn’t work that way. 

Haman, the evil-plotting, would-be throne-stealer, has duped the king, a basically good guy, into issuing a holocaust order against the Jews that on a coming day they would all be killed.  Mordecai, Esther’s uncle convinces Queen Esther to plead with the king for the lives of their people.  The evil protagonist, Haman gets wind of Esther and her uncle’s activity and has a large wooden pole prepared to impale Mordecai.  As Haman’s evil is exposed, the king, who dearly loves Esther, is so furious he has Haman impaled on the very pole meant for Mordecai. 

This is a plot that has thickened most Hollywood dramas.  But there is more.  According to the Law of the Medes and Persians, a decree issued by the king cannot be reversed.  According to the previous decree the Jews must die.  So, the king gives Esther the right to issue a further decree in His name.  She grants the legality of Jews to defend themselves without being held accountable.  The day is saved, and Mordecai is elevated to being King Xerxes’ right-hand man.

For You Today

Sometimes our view of Heaven is of a blurry-tunnel where we emerge ethereally peaceful on the other shore, with every complication figured-out.  God’s book, including Esther (which, paradoxically, never mentions the name of God), tells us otherwise.  As in Esther, evil is thwarted, and righteous justice prevails, so will Heaven set at right that which has been wrong.  But it won’t be entirely without our involvement.  As Esther and Mordecai had to scramble to come up with a solution to a messed-up situation – a holocaust set in motion by a misguided human choice – so believers will be charged with ruling in Christ’s kingdom.

I believe this is one of the chief reasons for our threescore-and-ten existence here on planet earth.  There is an apprenticeship necessary to become the kind of people God will use in ruling His beloved creation.  If that were not so, there could be no meaning to the pain we experience in this life.  God could take us directly to Heaven if He desired, but He doesn’t, so there is meaning in what we do and experience in this life.  Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, we cannot change the decrees of the past…but we can cooperate with God by opening our hearts to learn His ways, do His will in His Kingdom, and, like Mordecai, one day fully live-into that role of communing face-to-face with our Creator.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

[ii] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

The Forgotten Dinosaur

[1]

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Devotion VIDEO here

Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.  I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning.  God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.  This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.  Ephesians 3:8-12^(NLT)

You read the reports coming out of secular news sources as well as church denomination headquarters and they all say the same thing:  the church is dead.  By this the reports are not offering a critique on some uninspired sermon or boring hymn or the way church committees fall asleep regularly. 

By this the reports are simply announcing what is painfully obvious – that the institutions we have set up to represent God are failing at representing God’s wisdom and eternal plan – so much so, that the church, as an institution, is unsustainable. 

As the proverbial picture of rats jumping off a sinking ship, membership and attendance decline are stripping the church of the kind of impact it once had on the culture.

And that may not be bad news at all, really; particularly so if you consider the abuses that the church in general has inflicted on culture in the name of religion…namely, the Crusades, Holocaust, Waco, ethnic cleansing, Salem, and more recently, radical Islam.

This kind of so-called “church” needs to be left behind like a bad memory!

Paul spoke to a church in transition; it was a church largely comprised of Jews, converted to following Jesus.  To the first century believers the idea of Christ as their Savior was entirely a fulfillment of prophecy for the Jews.  Gentiles were not even an afterthought – they were considered beside the point altogether – not part of God’s plan (other than perhaps to fuel the fires of hell).

Paul had seen otherwise, as large numbers of Gentile believers were filled with the Holy Spirit and began serving God.  Paul convinced the leaders of this young church that God was indeed bringing His eternal plan to fruition; the change was going to ignite the worldwide Gospel message displaying the glory of God.

In Paul’s day change was just as hard as it is today; human nature being what it is – resistant (read that:  “stubborn”)!  We hardly ever want to be confused with the truth when we already have what we want.  Just leave us alone to bask in our former days of glory and warm fuzzy, please!

But there are other factors today that didn’t cloud Paul’s message – the church then had little wealth and power in the cultural sense.  What power she had was dependent on God’s Spirit moving as they moved out to share the message.

And therein we may find the one key piece of the puzzle that modern day leadership is groping-around to find in the spiritually-darkened malaise that is church these days.  What we’re looking for is what we see precious little of…the movement of God’s Holy Spirit.  Church in the 21^st century has become like the 400 years in-between Malachi and Matthew…no voice from Heaven.

Like the Rich Young Ruler who came to Jesus looking for answers about inheriting eternal life, the church may have to divest itself of whatever aspirations politically, financially and lose its image of respectability by actually following Jesus.

The alternative is to walk away sadly.  And that would be sad, indeed.

For You Today

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we always have that question before us, as to if what we’re doing day by day, even moment by moment, is following Jesus…or pleasing self.

You chew on that out on that Rocky Road today…and have a joy-filled and blessed day!

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[1] Title image:  ceridwen, via Wikimedia Commons