I am returning today from another study tour of the Holy Land. Each time I lead a group on a pilgrimage to Israel, I become more convinced that every Christian should visit the homeland of our Savior. The experience turns God's word from 2-D to 3-D, from black-and-white to color.
To walk on temple steps that Jesus trod, to visit the site of Jesus' synagogue in Capernaum and stand before the "gates of hell" in Caesarea Philippi, to sing Christmas carols in the cave where our Lord was born, to share the Lord's Supper while looking over Jerusalem and pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, to stand before Calvary and worship near the Garden Tomb—each time I come I am grateful for this privilege.
And each time, the Lord arranges a new transforming experience for me. This trip, my lifelong memory was created at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Reuben Nevo, one of our outstanding tour guides, introduced me to an elderly woman he met in the museum cafeteria at lunch. She told me her story in broken English. She is from Yugoslavia and was taken to Auschwitz at the age of 14. She never saw any member of her family again. She showed me the number tattooed on her arm.
A year and a half later, Soviet troops liberated her camp and saved her life. Now she volunteers each week at Yad Vashem, working to help find the names and stories of Holocaust victims. She came so close to being one, herself.
Next, our group walked to the Children's Memorial. Of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, one fourth were children. Five candles are lit in the center of the memorial. They reflect on mirrors to create 1.5 million candles all around us. The names and ages of children who perished in the Holocaust are read perpetually. It is always one of my most emotional experiences in Israel. As I walked through the memorial, I thought of the survivor I had just met and the children who perished.
From the explosion in West, Texas to the Boston Marathon bombings, from floods in the Midwest to the shootings in Seattle, the news continues to prove that life is fragile and tomorrow uncertain. So I'm going to follow the example of the Auschwitz survivor I met at the Holocaust museum. She refuses to allow the pain of her past to limit her purpose in the present and hope for the future.
Paul agreed: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). What "present sufferings" would you trust to the hands and hope of God today?
Auschwitz. The word conjures images no words can capture. Living skeletons in striped rags, hollow-eyed children, brick-oven gas chambers. Of Nazi Germany's 20,000 concentration camps, Auschwitz was the largest, spanning more than 15 square miles of German-occupied Poland.
More than 1.1 million people died there, mostly Jews. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Army entered the prison. Auschwitz stands today as a museum and memorial to theHolocaust.
News outlets are marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz this week. Two stories have especially impressed me. One is that of 90-year-old Gena Turgel. At the age of 16, she was shipped to Plaszow concentration camp, then marched to Auschwitz where she survived testing by the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele.
One day she was herded into the gas chambers with hundreds of other prisoners. Somehow she walked out alive, and assumes that the chamber did not work. "When I think back, I have to pinch myself sometimes to see if I'm really alive," she says. But Auschwitz is always with her. "I wear a lot of perfume," she told a reporter. "The stench of the camps will always stay with me and I try to block it out."
Another victim of Auschwitz was not imprisoned there, but his mother was. Tomas Lefkovitz has audio tapes on which she recorded her experiences, but he cannot bring himself to listen to them. He has chaired Holocaust Remembrance Day events and been involved in a discussion group for children of survivors. He goes to synagogue every week, wears phylacteries (boxes holding tiny scrolls of Scripture) during prayers, and embraces the beauty and philosophy of the Jewish faith.
But Tomas cannot believe in God. He scoffs at the notion that the Jews are "chosen" people: "Chosen for what? Because so far, I haven't seen any benefits. Anybody who wants to convert to Judaism, they're crazy. They're fools."
Why did Gena Turgel survive Hitler's atrocities when more than six million Jews did not? What would you say to convince Tomas Lefkovitz that the God who allowed his mother's suffering is a loving Father worthy of his trust?
I have my own theories on innocent suffering (for more, read Why does a good God allow an evil world?), but this week is not a time for abstract theology. Rather, it is a time to "weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15), to show suffering souls the reality of God's compassion in ours, to answer unanswerable questions not with logic but with love.
When my father died, the person who helped me most was a friend who drove across Houston to sit with me. He didn't pretend to know how I felt. He didn't try to answer my questions. He just stayed beside me, all afternoon, and hugged me when he left. In his presence I sensed the presence of God.
Thanks Bro Greg, I believe that we mystery show solidarity with others. It's a real travesty what occurred at Auschwitz. So much blood in the soil there. I could never imagine what that was like. What horror!
