A Circular Letter by Bonhoeffer after 9.11.38 the Kristallnacht

A Circular Letter to the Finkenwalde Community a few days after the The Kristallnacht on the “9.11.38” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The Kristallnacht means the Night of  Broken Glass.

75 Years since the Night of Broken Glass

Reinhard Heydrich under Hitler's Orders  commanded the Gestapo to destroy and kill Jews across Germany, to smash and loot Jewish Businesses, set  synagogues aflame and to rid Germany of Jews.

The interior of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in Berlin after Kristallnacht

“Bonhoeffer reflected, “ I have lately been thinking a great deal about Psalm 74; Zechariah 2:8; and Romans 9:4 and 11: 11-15. This leads us to very earnest prayer.” Taken all together he was preaching a very provocative sermon on Antisemitism.

The verse in Zechariah 2:8  For so says Jehovah of Hosts: He has sent me after glory, to the nations who stripped you; for he who touches you touches the pupil of His eye. ESV

The verses in Romans  9:4  who are Israelites; to whom belong the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises;

Rom 9:5  whose are the fathers, and of whom is the Christ according to flesh, He being God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Rom 11:11  I ask, however, "Have they stumbled so as to be finally ruined?" No, indeed; but by their lapse salvation has come to the Gentiles in order to arouse the jealousy of the descendants of Israel;

Rom 11:12  and if their lapse is the enriching of the world, and their overthrow the enriching of the Gentiles, will not still greater good follow their restoration?

Rom 11:13  But to you Gentiles I say that, since I am an Apostle specially sent to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry,

Rom 11:14  trying whether I can succeed in rousing my own countrymen to jealousy and thus save some of them.

Bonhoeffer was making the point that the Jews are God’s People, that the Messiah came from them and came for them first. He has never abandoned them,, but longs to reach them “as the Apple of His Eye.”

If Christianity came to the Gentiles [Non-Jews], it came in some large part so that the Jews could receive their Messiah. The Evil that the Nazis did to the Jews was an Evil done to God and God's Special people…..

Bonhoeffer stood against the Nazis who had forbidden the Jews from being part of the German Church.

Finkenwalde Seminary before being closed by the Gestapo

Now we are in the Days to pray for the Jews that they will understand and see that Yeshua, HaMachiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, is their MESSIAH