Earlier in this book I mentioned Johann Christoph Blumhardt, a
nineteenth-century pastor through whom many were led to God.
After he died in 1880, his son Christoph Friedrich carried on his
father’s work until his own death in 1919. Despite their obvious
apostolic powers, neither father nor son were pious in a conventional way. If anything, they were straightforward and down-toearth to the point of being blunt. Christoph Friedrich once wrote:
We can kill Christ with our Christianity! After all, what is more
important – Christianity or Christ? Yes, we can even kill Christ
with our prayers. When we approach God full of self-importance, our prayers are useless. Many people pray only for their
own honor and satisfaction and don’t think of the kingdom of
God or of the glory of God. When any comfort is lacking they
complain and cry, “O dear Father in heaven, bless us! Protect
our investments!” Thus they cry and weep, and with their
prayers they kill Christ.
In 1842 the elder Blumhardt found himself and his family faced
with a woman in great emotional and spiritual distress. Gottliebin
Dittus, a member of Blumhardt’s parish in Möttlingen, had often
been ill, and walking was difficult for her, as one leg was shorter
than the other.
Magical practices and superstitious beliefs were rampant in the
village at the time, and Gottliebin was no stranger to them. From
childhood on, she had had uncanny experiences, and had gradually
become involved in the occult. Now, at twenty-seven, she uttered
strange sounds and used different voices. Repeatedly she saw a
woman holding a dead child. There were banging noises in her
house at night, and she began to have spells of unconsciousness.
Once she was found in a pool of blood, and another time she tried
to hang herself.
After two years of torment, Gottliebin came to Blumhardt and
confessed various sins in the hope that it would help her. But there
was no relief. Soon crowds began to gather at the Dittus house to
witness the supernatural occurrences. Though fully aware of the
dangers inherent in attempting to confront evil spirits, Blumhardt
reluctantly decided to step in. Strangely, Gottliebin, when faced
with this man of God, could not bear to look at him or hear his
prayers.
One day, as she lay unconscious on the floor, Blumhardt announced in a loud, commanding voice: “We have seen enough of
what the devil can do. Now let us see what God can do!” At this, to
the astonishment of those present, Gottliebin awoke and prayed
with him. Thus began a long and intense struggle against the darkness that was binding the woman’s soul. Gottliebin continued to
suffer under the attacks; in fact, they grew progressively more violent. Before long, her sister Katharina began to suffer similarly. As
those around the women prayed for their souls, they experienced
the tumult and drama of two spirit worlds clashing head-on. For
his part, Blumhardt refused to yield from his firm belief that prayer
was the one and only weapon strong enough to overcome the powers of darkness. He was proved right: after two grueling years, the
battle ended in complete victory and peace.
It was very early one morning – two o’clock – when Katharina,
gripped by one final contortion, cried out,“Jesus is the victor!”
Blumhardt wrote, “The strength and power of the demon now
appeared to wane with every passing minute, growing more and
more quiet, moving less and less, finally leaving her body
altogether – but not until eight in the morning – just as the light of
life might go out of a dying person. At this point the fight came to
an end. True, there still remained various things to deal with
afterwards, but it was merely like clearing away the rubble of a
collapsed building.” The two women, completely freed from their
torments, joined the Blumhardt ’s household; Gottliebin even
remained with him the rest of her days, working, praying, and
counseling the many needy souls drawn there by the hope her victory gave them.
Through the miracle of healing a movement of repentance began
in Blumhardt’s parish. Hundreds of people –even complete
strangers – came to him to confess their sins. Mental and emotional
burdens were lifted and the sick were healed. Not that the pastor
would have anything to do with sorcery or even curiosity about it – to him, the remedy for spiritual darkness was not an understanding of it, but prayer. Indeed, prayer was the essence of Blumhardt’s
ministry. “The people seeking my help are burdened souls who do
not find comfort or the strength, either from within or from
without, to free themselves…The only thing I do is to awaken their
trust in God and lead them to confident prayer to him.”
From all over Germany, and even from Holland and Switzerland,
people flocked to Blumhardt’s parish. Soon he had to find a larger
place. He purchased a former spa and developed it into a sort of
spiritual retreat center. The miracles given by God in those years
were so powerful that when my wife and I traveled there in the
1960s and 1970s, we could still sense something of them. Though
difficult to describe, the spirit we felt might best be summed up as
an awareness of God’s greatness, and the smallness of our lives in
the face of eternity. A carved plaque on the wall of Gottliebin’s
house, placed there over a century ago, captures this well.
Translated from the German, it reads:
O man, think on eternity;
mock not the time still given thee,
for judgment cometh speedily.
After his father’s death the younger Blumhardt increasingly tried
to deflect attention from the healing power of prayer because he
felt that too much emphasis was being placed on the experiences
of particular individuals. “It would be better for people to remain sick than to go around chattering about their healing.” He
lamented the lack of reverence for what God had done, and feared
that his house would be seen as an institution for faith healing. As
he wrote in a letter:
There is a dishonesty that exploits the mercy and grace of God in
such a way that the Savior becomes our servant, who is merely
expected to restore again and again what we have spoiled. A
selfish streak has crept in among us. This pains my heart, and I
have decided to find a new attitude toward those who come to
me in need and affliction. It is God’s honor we must exalt in our
own persons, both physically and spiritually. Not our own wellbeing must be in the foreground, but only God…Leave for a
time your begging before God, and do not look at your own suffering; turn your inner being in the opposite direction, and look
at the suffering of God, whose kingdom has been held up for so
long.
For the Blumhardts, healing, even of dire ailments, was significant
only insofar as it furthered the coming of the kingdom of God on
earth. Unless God is present in our hearts – unless his justice is
manifest in our daily lives – our physical well-being is insignificant.
More than anything else, they felt, suffering souls need to be
pointed to the three great supplications in the Lord’s Prayer: thy
name be honored, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
Sundar Singh was born in 1889 to a wealthy Sikh family in India.
There was nothing he lacked – money, food, fine clothing, luxury
and abundance of every kind. Against the wishes of his parents,
Sundar Singh went to a mission school, where he experienced a conversion. Immediately, he was persecuted by his family, who said
they would sooner see him dead than a Christian. Once, he was
given poisoned food and became so ill the doctors considered his
survival a miracle. Sundar Singh was baptized at sixteen by Western missionaries, but soon left them to follow the footsteps of
Christ in a manner more suited to his background: he became a
wandering holy man, or Sadhu.
Sundar Singh traveled throughout Asia and Europe and twice
went to England and America, where he was distressed by the excess of materialism on the one hand and the absence of prayer on
the other. Everywhere he made a profound impression on those
who met him. My grandfather heard Sundar Singh speak in 1922
and was so impressed by him that he gave every member of his congregation a copy of his biography. Here was a man of rare conviction, a man for whom discipleship meant following one’s beliefs
no matter what the cost.
Numerous times Sundar Singh experienced divine protection. In
one of the most striking incidents, in Tibet (where missionaries
were not permitted), he was captured after preaching, tried, and
thrown into a dry well whose lid was then closed and locked. As he
fell, his right arm was badly injured, but he survived and spent the
next three days in darkness without food or water. On the third
night, just as Sundar Singh was crying to God in prayer, he heard a
grating sound: someone was opening the locked lid of the well. A
rope was thrown down, and he was gently pulled up. Then the lid
was closed again, and locked. Sundar Singh turned to thank his deliverer, but there was no one to be seen.
He was free, and even the pain in his arm was gone. Undeterred,
he went back to the same town and took up his preaching once
more. Again he was arrested and taken before a judge, the same
one who had ordered him thrown in the well. Amazed, the man
inquired who had freed Sundar Singh, but no one could tell him.
There was only one key to the lid of the well, and it was still hanging from the judge’s own girdle. The Sadhu was ordered to leave
the city immediately, lest his powerful God bring disaster upon the
people.
With regard to the miracles he experienced, Sundar Singh said
nothing to deny or defend them. He frequently insisted that there
was “no power in these hands,” claiming that the only miracle is
the power of God in answer to prayer. When asked whether he had
ever tried spiritual healing, he answered, “Yes, but I gave it up because I found it made people look to me and not to God, and that is
a cross I cannot bear.”
Another time he was asked, “How much of your prayer is petition, and how much of it is communion?” “For the first two or
three years after my conversion,” he replied, “I used to ask for specific things. Now I ask for God.”
Several chapters back
I wrote about the difficulties our community experienced under Hitler, hardships that pale in comparison
with the suffering of the Jews and millions of others, yet still altered the course of our history.
Many amazing things happened during those years, and although
some events may appear coincidental, there is little doubt in my
mind that they were an answer to prayer. Someone once said, “Coincidence is a pseudonym God uses when he prefers not to sign his
name.” Only once, for instance, in all our years in Germany, did we
have visitors from North America, and they came just during the
week that the community was surrounded and raided by the Nazis.
On April 14, 1937, secret police descended on the Bruderhof, and
all men, women, and children were ordered to gather in the dining
hall to hear a proclamation. Our own people were of course apprehensive, but our visitors from America were not. One of them, who
spoke German, grabbed the commander by his lapel: “Watch what
you are doing. We will tell all America what we see here.”
Once assembled, all Bruderhof members were ordered to disperse within the next twenty-four hours, either returning to relatives or to their hometowns. Later that day the order was modified: the Nazis agreed to allow them to leave the country in groups
and find refuge in England and Liechtenstein. Who knows what
might have happened but for the presence of two American visitors, who recorded everything they saw?
The following day, three members – Hans, Hannes, and Karl –
were ordered to get into a Gestapo car and were taken away. By
afternoon it was clear that they were not coming back. As their
wives and families later found out, the three had been driven to
the Nazi district headquarters, taken into “protective custody,” and
locked in a cell. Hours became days, and days turned into weeks.
One day Karl was informed that despite his objections, he was going to be inducted into military service as he was German (the other
two men were Swiss). All three of them declared that they would
not submit under any circumstance, and wrote a joint statement
addressed to the highest local official. The following day Karl was
taken from his cell. While he was gone, Hannes and Hans went on
their knees and remained there, pleading that Karl be protected
and given strength. Miraculously, he was brought back unharmed
within hours.
A few days later, the three men were suddenly ordered to gather
their belongings and follow a guard to the iron gates outside the
prison, where a black car stood waiting for them. Certain that they
were headed for concentration camp, the men refused to get in. At
this they were handed a letter from their lawyer, instructing them
to go with the driver of the car and head for Holland. Perplexed
but relieved, they jumped in, and the driver took off at high speed.
An hour later he stopped in the middle of a forest, glanced around
to make sure no one was watching, motioned them to get out, and
pointed in the direction of the Dutch border. With that he sped off
and was gone, never to be heard of again.
Crossing into Holland through a forest in the middle of the night
was a risky undertaking. When the brothers lost their way and
came out on the German side, a guard stopped them. Incredibly,
they were able to convince him that friends on the other side of
the border expected them, and he not only let them across but also
showed them the way to the nearest Dutch village. From there they
made their way to England. Years later, Karl chuckled over the
incident:
We were creeping quietly through the woods for a very long
time. Hannes was walking in front, and suddenly he started
singing! I thought he was crazy, but he said he was sure we were
safely over the border, so I started singing too. We walked on,
singing at the top of our lungs. Suddenly a loud voice said,
“
Halt!”
My heart sank. It was a border guard, who questioned
us and looked at our papers but then let us go. We must have
seemed like fools, walking through the woods in the middle of
the night, singing. As for our papers – I can only think an angel
must have held a hand over the guard’s eyes: none of our passports were valid!