Paul Walker, “Free Pass”

In our passage from 2 Timothy today we see Paul encouraging a young minister. He tells Timothy to keep it simple, make the main thing the main thing, stay on point. Avoid mission drift, no matter what people seem to want to hear, for they will have “itching ears” for the latest ideological zeitgeist. Paul “solemnly urges” Timothy, “whether the time is favorable or unfavorable” to “proclaim the message.” Proclaim the message. What is that message? How does that message speak to you today?

     To get at what that message is I want to tell you the true story of another minister named Henry Gerecke. In September of 1951, The Saturday Evening Post published an in-depth story about Henry’s ministry. It was entitled, “I Walked to the Gallows with the Nazi Chiefs.” Henry served as the Protestant Chaplain at Nuremburg Prison in the aftermath of World War II. There is an excellent post about him on Mockingbird for those that want to know more.

     Henry grew up as a farm boy in Missouri and was ordained as a Lutheran pastor. The International Military Tribunal requested him since he had experience as a prison chaplain and spoke serviceable German. The Geneva Convention stipulated that all prisoners – no matter who they are or what they’ve done – should “receive Christian comfort and counsel.” 

     At first, Henry wanted to refuse the call. And for good reason. When the orders first arrived, his initial reaction was that his own personal anger would be an obstacle for any effective gospel ministry. “I had been at Dachau concentration camp,” he recalled, “where my hand, touching a wall, had been smeared with the human blood seeping through. In England, for fifteen months, I had ministered to the wounded and dying from the front lines. My oldest son had been literally ripped apart in the fighting. Our second son suffered severely in the Battle of the Bulge. Our third and youngest had just entered the Army.”

     How on earth could Henry minister to the enemy? The enemy responsible for the horrific, systematic slaughter of 6 million Jewish people? The enemy who had ripped apart his oldest son? The enemy who wounded his middle at the Battle of the Bulge? Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest? Who could possible blame him if he recused himself from duty? How could God expect him to proclaim the message in this situation?

     I suppose, at this point, we need to talk about what exactly that message is. That message is illustrated by Hitler’s loyal general, a Field Marshal named Keitel. Keitel was responsible for countless deaths and widespread suffering. When Henry first met him, Keitel was reading his Bible. He looked up at the minister, smiled and said, “I know from this book that God can love a sinner like me.”

     Although Henry was initially skeptical, he reported that Keitel “knelt beside his cot and read a portion of Scripture. Then he folded his hands, looked heavenward and began to pray. Never have I heard a prayer quite like that one. Though I cannot break confessional confidence to share it, I can say that he spoke penitently of his many sins and pleaded for mercy by reason of Christ’s sacrifice for him.”

     That, my friends, is the message of the gospel, the message to proclaim whether the time is favorable or unfavorable, the message especially needed in the age of itching ears. It is the message of the radical forgiveness of sin based on Christ’s sacrifice. Yes, even for the Nazi’s. Yes, even for the white supremacists of 2017 in Charlottesville. Yes, even for all who have done you personal harm.

     The radical forgiveness of sin based entirely on the merit of Jesus Christ gets a little uncomfortable, doesn’t it? And here I’ve got to make a distinction. If you have been directly harmed by someone, you just may not be able to forgive that person. You may not be able to do what Henry did in the Nuremburg prison. You may find that you just cannot overcome your gut reaction of anger, your desire for recompense and justice. If you are in this boat, then I’m right there with you. 

     But just because you and I are unable to forgive doesn’t mean that the perpetrator isn’t forgiven. And it doesn’t hollow out the radical nature of the message we are to proclaim. As I said, Henry struggled with his call to proclaim this message. 

     “How could a one-time Missouri farm boy, make any impression on disciples of Adolf Hitler? Given my bitterness and anger, how could I summon the Christian spirit, which this mission demanded of a chaplain?”  He reported that for the next few days he prayed over his decision, and, at some point, his anger and rage gave way to pity and compassion. “Slowly, the men at Nuremberg became to me just lost souls, whom I was being asked to help.”

     Again, this is not a sermon urging you to be like Henry. If God brings you to that point in your own situation, then so much the better for everyone. Pity and compassion are rare commodities in this divided world. But this is a sermon to root home once again the unique message of the gospel – the forgiveness of sin for both victim and victimizer. You will not find that message anywhere else.

     Musician and writer Nick Cave says it this way. The gospel “deals with the necessity for forgiveness and mercy, whereas I don't think secularism has found the language to address these matters. The upshot of that is a kind of callousness towards humanity in general, or so it seems to me.”  And so it seems to me, too.

     “I solemnly urge you,” Paul says, “proclaim the message.” The message of the gospel is as radical and offensive now as it was then. Someone emailed me the other day and said that he just can’t get fully on board with what seems like a “free pass” - which, by the way, isn’t free. It cost more than any human being could even imagine. It just that Jesus paid the cost – so it would be free for you and me.

     But still, I get what sticks in the craw - there is something about a “free pass” that just rubs us the wrong way.   It rubs you the wrong way, that is, until it’s you who needs the free pass. It is you who is doing the sinning and the hurting and the damage. Then the offense of the gospel becomes the attraction of the gospel – an oasis amid the deserts of justice and revenge. And that’s why the proclamation of the message will always endure. For as long as there are sinners, there will need to be the forgiveness of sin, not just for “them” but for you too.

     And if I’m not mistaken, that is why we are all here.

     Amen.