Dietrich Bonhoeffer has, among others, been my teacher about what it looks like to keep the physical and spiritual realms connected in our life of discipleship. While living in New York because of fear of what Hilter’s Army would do to him and his challenge to their way of running the empire, he was convicted that if he did not endure the trials of his country during the wars, he had no right to return to his home, Christian Germany, after the fighting ceased.

He was, as he had predicted, imprisoned for challenging the Machine that was the Third Reich. One of his prison-mates recorded this story that captures the essence of the tension Acts presents to us:

Pastor Bonhoeffer held a little service and spoke to us in a manner which reached the hearts of all, finding just the right words to express the spirit of our imprisonment and the thoughts and resolutions which it had brought. He had hardly finished his last prayer when the door opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said: “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us.” Those words “come with us”—for all prisoners they had come to mean one thing only—the scaffold. We bade him good-bye—he drew me aside—“This is the end,” he said. “For me, the beginning of life,” (Bonhoeffer, Clyde Fant, 24).