?"I never interfered with God and I do not want Him to interfere with me."�
–Adolf Hitler
Shocking! Horrific! These are two of the words to describe the atrocities perpetrated by demon-possessed rulers and their blind followers. Think of Hitler's Nazi marauding and rapacious army as they strangled millions of Jews and anybody who tried to assist and defend them. Some rulers worship at the shrine of racism. This is their modern and post-modern goddess. Others extend it to religious intolerance and seek to benefit from a polarised society. But the ghosts of their malpractice returns to haunt them. They create a monster, feed the monster and the purring pussycat become a savage tiger–satisfied by blood and more blood. It is important to identify positive, cross-border relationships which demonstrate that there still exists noble human beings who would risk their lives to save others. This is their lifetime contribution to the fight against ethnic rivalry, hatred, discrimination and revenge.
This is their contribution in the struggle to produce a world where unconditional love reigns su-preme. This is the incarnation of their efforts to produce stability and harmony. Think of Sophie Gargasz, 44, a Seventh-day Adventist, and her husband, Jakub Gargasz, a Roman Catholic. They lived in southern Poland in a town called Brzozow. On November 19, 1942, three years after the German invasion of Poland, the death sentence was passed on citizens who dared to feed, shelter, protect Jewish citizens. This was hatred to the max. Hitler was not playing games. He never made idle threats. He delivered on his promises. He was a psychopathic beast who was determined to create a super-race based on pain and paranoia. His persecution complex knew no boundaries. In Roland R Hegstad's book, The Incredible Power of Grace, there is a very sad story about 24 Polish farmers who were executed for harbouring 150 Jews. Villages were burned because they felt that the Jews were not their enemies and refused to be controlled by Hitler's philosophy.
Well, Sophie Gargasz had an awesome challenge. One day a Jewish woman knocked at her door. Her husband was at work and she had to make a choice: to try to protect the woman and face the possibility of being killed by Hitler's vampires or reject the woman. She made a swift decision. She had to extend the courtesy, she had to sacrifice to save the desperate woman. When her husband returned home, he agreed. One Adventist woman and her Catholic husband decided to save the Jewish woman from Hitler's Gestapo. But the Gestapo heard of their kindness and were infuriated. They arrested them, brought them to court and on April 19, 1944, they were sentenced to death by three judicial animals. What a vicious world we live in. It is hunted and haunted by demons that promote hatred and revenge. Dorothy Sayers in her epic 1947 publication, Creed or Chaos, wrote about the hopelessness of the intellectual elite who "cling to an optimistic belief in the civilising influence of progress and enlightenment."
She claims that when this fails, utter depression kicks in as "the bottom drops out of their universe." Of course, man cannot fix man. It takes one with far greater power to fix man. Let us be brutally frank, there is no Star Trekian paradise, where we can find an escape propelled by beings from another planet. It is God and God alone who can fix this planet, put an end to prejudice, and transform leaders who are stung by the power virus. Sayers concludes that Christians are not shell-shocked by man's inhumanity to his colleagues because we know that "there is a deep interior dislocation at the very centre of human personality." It has been said that we are all locked in the search, the pursuit of happiness. But some do not see the link between happiness and justice. In fact, those who benefit from corruption–the poison of the age–believe that injustice is no problem once they can advance their economic status.
But there are those who know that material stuff cannot provide true and lasting happiness. We are aware of a deep hole in our lives which only God can fill. In the heart of every man there is a thirst, a longing, a passion for cosmic significance. Some may say pastor; let us use some simpler language. Let us therefore talk about divine approval. Let us not forget that we were made in the image of God, and there is that perennial thrust to worship Him. In case we reject Him, we still have that urge to worship and nature abhors a vacuum, so we are going to worship others, self, things that would give us a false sense of security. Sin has produced a world that suggests you should only love those who belong to your race, religion, class, profession, culture. This is the tragedy of fallen humanity where we seek to imprison love so that love becomes an "if" thing–if you look like me, if you vote like me, if you belong to my religion etc.
No wonder Christ told Nicodemus he must be born again. A new engine is required, there is need for starting all over again where spiritual values are restored, so that integrity can be internalised. How can we turn hatred to love? How can we turn intolerance to appreciation? How can we turn revenge into forgiveness? How can we turn promiscuity into purity? How can we turn greed into generosity? The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. The example of a Polish couple, one an Adventist, her husband a Catholic rescuing a Jew, ignoring the threats of the sadistic Hitler, shows that there is still hope for humanity. They were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice, to pay the price, to die for a noble cause.
They represent the altruism that is required, if we are to save the community from the expanding, criminal counterculture that has engulfed several nations. A plural society provides enormous opportunities for capacity building, sharing of competencies, display of courage, the practice of unconditional love and the building of bridges. The time has come for us to remove the walls by agreeing to make the sacrifices, to focus on our strengths and to display a rich determination to overcome our weaknesses. Imagine the Hindu brother risking his life to save the Christian brother and the Muslim sister repairing the home of a Rastafarian family. Love in any language comes straight from the heart!
