100 Prison Meditations: Cries of Truth from Behind the Iron Curtain

This is the fourteenth title I have had published since I arrived in the free world.

I had come to the West, after fourteen years in Communist prisons, almost unknown, and not at all familiar with the Western reader.

I owe it to Edward England, a man wholeheartedly dedicated to providing the church with food for souls, that my books could appear, spread, and be translated in over fifty languages.

God rewarded his work. The publishing of these books—which tell of the struggle, the heroism, and the faith of Christians under unspeakable oppression—led to the founding of the International Christian Mission to the Communist World [now known as The Voice of the Martyrs].

Edward England provided the English-speaking Commonwealth with books extolling Christ; this mission in whose foundation he played a decisive role now does the same thing secretly in Communist countries.

Our mission and I express our thanks.

While I was in Australia, I received news that my daughter-in-law in California had been gravely injured in an automobile accident that demolished the car. Her nine-year-old daughter, who was with her at the time, had also been hurt. When I called California to learn the details, my granddaughter, in answer to my inquiries, exclaimed, “I have good news! I received a cat for a present!” Then followed a graphic description of—the cat.

Jesus taught us to become like little children, to take a detached view of events, even tragic ones. We may bleed, we may be traumatized, but still we can experience joy in little things that might be considered childlike or unsophisticated. This is exactly what happened to me in jail.

I spent fourteen years in Communist prisons—not many by Communist standards: the Russian Baptist pastor Hrapov was in jail for twenty-eight years; the Catholic Paulaitis for thirty-five; the Orthodox monk Michael Ershov for over forty. We were hungry, beaten, tortured. For years we were individually isolated in solitary cells, where we heard nothing, not even a whisper.

We had no books or writing materials, much less a Bible. We never saw a child, and seldom a woman. We saw no colors: our world was gray. The walls were gray, our uniforms were gray, even our faces were an ashen gray. We soon forgot that blue, green, red, violet exist.

During those long gray months, those leaden years, what did we think about? Certainly not about communism or about having to suffer. Our minds were too childlike to be controlled by events.

Shakespeare, in
Henry IV
, wrote, “Thought is the slave of life.” Humanistic philosophy also claims that material conditions determine how our minds work. This might well be true for adults, but not for children. A child lying in a hospital bed after a major accident can have uppermost in his mind a promised toy. We had the same experience. We thought often about things completely unrelated to the pains endured. This is not to deny that everything in jail could be a problem. Will there be many worms in our soup today? Will it contain at least five beans, or perhaps a few more? Will we be allowed to use the toilet? Will I be beaten today? How should I mislead my interrogator so as not to denounce others and cause their arrest? Will I ever be freed? We had problems, but would not allow these to obsess us.

During a board meeting for the mission, my granddaughter sat on the carpet near us playing with her toys. Overhearing our melancholy discussion of mission problems, she asked, “Oh, Papa, what is ‘problem’? Where is the word ‘problem’ found in the Bible?” I replied, “Nowhere.” Puzzled, she queried, “Then why do you pastors worry about something that is not in the Bible?”

This happened years after my release from prison. While in jail, we did not live with problems. Let them beat, starve, mock us. With such things our torturers busied themselves. We were free to rejoice in the mysteries of the Word of God. With such things we kept busy.

I thought about God and about the Bible, about its words, its letters, even the blank spaces between the letters. At times I saw these shapes more vividly than the black letters. During those years the only author I considered apart from the Bible was Shakespeare.

Charles Dickens once said his father gave him this advice: “Each day read a page of the Bible to know God and a page from Shakespeare to know men.” Perhaps because I am Jewish, I think much in images, not in propositions. With me in my cell were the Bible characters of old, as well as the saints of all ages—that “cloud of witnesses” mentioned by Paul. I also saw, as in a theater, Shakespeare’s characters.

From childhood I have possessed a fantastic memory, which, with much exercise, expanded even more in prison (though there were temporary breakdowns as a result of being drugged). All prisoners indulged in images. Drugs, which were put in our food for brainwashing, enriched the imagery. But we knew that beyond the images lay the Truth, so complex that even a multitude of images could not exhaust it. We must be able to look at it in its nakedness, in its simplicity. This I attempted to do.

The day I was baptized, the Jewish Christian pastor Isaac Feinstein gave me a verse: “Reuben [my Hebrew name] shall live and not die.” In a similar vein, Shakespeare said about King Richard II, “God for his Richard has a glorious angel. Then, if angels fight, weak men must fall.”

With this in mind, I did not waste time, between beatings and tortures, thinking about how badly I had been beaten or fearing that I would be beaten again. Instead, I recited verses of Scripture, Shakespeare, and other poetry. I even composed poems.

“All places that the eye of heaven visits are to a wise man ports and happy havens” (
Richard II
). This even includes Communist prison cells. Atheists believe they put me in jail. I believe God sent me there, to allow me to delve more deeply into the truths concealed within His words.

The outward circumstances, the complete silence, the situation of not being distracted by either sight or sound—all were highly favorable to deep thought. This is when I composed the essence of the meditations presented in this book.

After three years of solitary confinement, I was moved to a common cell. There I met with many theologians, some of them exquisite Hebraists or scholars in Greek. Now my thoughts could be chiseled and honed. Later, when free, I could complete the work with scholarly research.

With many of the thoughts expressed in these sermons I myself no longer agree, now that I am living under normal conditions. But I record my thoughts as they occurred to me then.

God says we should serve Him not only with all our heart, but also with all our mind. This means intellectual work, hard work. As children we used our brains to learn algebra and geometry. As adults we explore the mysteries of molecules and atoms. When man split the atom, he created the ultimate weapon. Why should we not ponder diligently every atom of the Word of God, however challenging the task, so that we might counter with the ultimate Truth? This desire is strong within me, as I contemplate the words of life that can conquer the destructive forces of godless thinking.

Imprisoned Christians mocked gnawing sorrow. In chains, sometimes in straitjackets and gagged (we were considered mad), awaiting the specter of death as often as the cell door was opened, we thought about God’s Word.

Christians in the free world also contemplate His Word. But because thoughts given by God in those extreme circumstances might resound with a deeper harmony, I publish them. “They breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.” I am confident that these reflections conceived in silence and nurtured in pain will enable you to delve more profoundly into truth, in order to know the Truth.

The Mystery of Jesus’ Sacrifice

Suppose you were living 2,000 years ago in Palestine, that you were sinful, heavy with guilt, and Jesus told you, “Your sin is grave and deserves punishment. ‘The wages of sin are death.’ But tomorrow I will be flogged and crowned with a crown of thorns for you—I invite you to assist them when they drive nails into My hands and feet and fix Me to a cross. I will cry in anguish, and I will share the sorrow of My mother whose heart will be pierced by compassion for Me as if by a sword. You should be there to hear My cries. And when I have died, you shall know that your sins are forgiven forever, that I was your substitute, your scapegoat. This is how a man gets saved. Will you accept My suffering for your offense, or do you prefer to bear the punishment yourself?” What would you have answered?

I believe that this dilemma should be placed before a soul seeking salvation. Fifteen hundred years before the historical birth of Christ the Bible says, “Today I have begotten You” (Psalm 2:7). It also says to the penitent 2,000 years after Golgotha, “Today I die for you.” Jesus’ life and death are outside of time and space.

Would you accept? More than once in Communist prisons I have seen a pastor receive a beating to the blood in place of another prisoner. A name would be called and the pastor would simply say, “It is I.” In Auschwitz, Maximilian Kolbe, a priest, offered to take the place of a Pole sentenced to death by the Nazis. The Pole was the father of many children. The commandant of the camp accepted the substitution and the Pole was spared. Kolbe died by asphyxiation. Had you been that Pole, what would you have decided?

I lived many years in an isolated subterranean prison cell, in timelessness, something akin to the weightlessness experienced by astronauts. Just as they know no difference between heavy and light, I knew no distinction between past, present, and future. In my prison cell Jesus’ presence was immediate. His life did not belong to the past, nor was it a series of successive events. He put before me the problem I have just put to you. He told me, “You are a sinner and are condemned to eternal punishment for your transgressions, but I am ready to save you. Because of your sin, I will endure rejection, flogging, being spat upon, being crowned with a crown of thorns, the pains of crucifixion, and the agony of seeing my mother brokenhearted at the foot of the cross. My blood will cleanse you from all sin.” I had to decide whether or not to accept the sacrifice of the innocent Son of God for my sins. I believed that to accept would be a greater wickedness than all I might ever have done in my life and I flatly refused this proposal. Jesus was glad about my “No.”

Then came the real question, the thing He had had in mind from the beginning. “What if I incorporate your being into Mine, if you become part of My body, if you deny yourself as an independent self, and I will live in you henceforth and you will be ‘crucified with me’ (Galatians 2:20), ‘buried with me’ (Romans 6:4), and share the fellowship of My suffering (Philippians 3:10)? People in churches will sing, ‘safe in arms of Jesus,’ while you will be safe as an arm of Jesus, nailed like His to a cross, but also imparting goodness like His. Do you wish to become My co-worker for the salvation of mankind, alleviating sufferings, filling up ‘what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ’ (Colossians 1:24), and imparting eternal life to others? By virtue of My presence in you, the real fruits of My wounds will appear in your soul.”

I have accepted this proposal. Christians are meant to have the same vocation as their King, that of cross-bearers. It is this consciousness of a high calling and of partnership with Jesus which brings gladness in tribulation, which makes Christians enter prisons for their faith with the joy of a bridegroom entering the bridal room.

When George Vins, the general secretary of the Baptist Union of the USSR, was sentenced for his faith, believers in the courtroom covered him with flowers. His little daughter, hoisted on a stool, recited in front of the Communist judges, “Father, with Christ you are free in prison, and freedom without Him is prison.” The believers waiting outside the building received him with a Christian hymn.

The relative of a Christian prisoner in Red China said to someone who sympathized with her, “You should not feel sorry for us, for if he were not in that slave labor camp, how could the others here come to know the gospel of the Lord Jesus?”

In the same spirit we should receive the crosses of poverty, racial discrimination, personal betrayals, unfaithfulness of marriage partners, rebellion of children, and all other sorrows of life.

A man who smugly accepts Christ’s dying for him and shouts Hallelujah about the innocent Son of God receiving punishment he himself deserves should be more severely punished than before. The gospel, the good news, is the privilege of becoming a member of the Body of Christ, of suffering, of dying in pain with Him, and also of being resurrected with Him in glory.

Because sacrifice is implicit in a conversion, the call of an evangelist has the name “altar call.” Every being placed upon the altar in Jerusalem—lambs, rams, and pigeons—died. Someone dies for you. This time it is not an animal, but the Son of God. He has decreed it and nothing you can do will change His mind. You can only ask for the privilege of henceforth being able to sacrifice yourself as well, for the glory of God and for the good of your fellowmen. In return you receive the right to die to sin and to the world and its laws.

The reality of a conversion is in becoming one with Him. It is shameful and abominable to accept His substitutionary death otherwise.