"Follow Me"

I've been reading a book called The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A couple of years ago, I saw a documentary about his life (simply titled Bonhoeffer) that left a deep impression on me. Just watching it, I felt my attention being clarified in some way--it made me want to be holy. Not to be annoyingly, simperingly holy, but to be powerfully holy. Bonhoeffer was a Christian pastor during Nazi era in Germany, and he objected to the Third Reich early on. Some American friends brough him to safety in England, and he worked as a pastor there for a few years. But as the crisis in Germany grew more intense, he returned to his homeland.

That in itself is a choice I find breathtaking--it's like those firemen who rushed into the World Trade Center inferno as tens of thousands of people rushed out. He re-entered the conflagration that was Germany at the time because, as he wrote, Christians in Germany would face the choice between praying for civilization to be preserved and their nation destroyed, or praying for their nation to be destroyed and civilization to be preserved. He wrote that he could not legitimately participate in the rebuilding of Germany after the war if he did not share in making the inevitable, heartbreaking choice with his people.

So he came back to Germany, and he continued to preach what he considered to be the pure message of Christ, refusing to dilute it. He was arrested for conspiring against Hitler (which he had done), and he was executed very shortly before the end of World War II .

Anyway, in this book on discipleship, he writes that Jesus' first and last words to Peter were "Follow me." Jesus calls Peter, the impulsive, big-hearted fisherman, to himself with those words, and Peter follows as he preaches, heals, suffers, and dies. Then Jesus comes to Peter again, and when it's time to ascend to Heaven, he says, "Follow me." Yes, it's a command that presages Peter's own death, through which he will follow Jesus to heaven . . .

But it also seems to me like a tender moment between two men who love each other. I think Jesus looks at Peter, his friend to whom he has to say good-bye, and says, "Remember how I said, 'Follow me'--and you came? Remember all the great times we had, how we camped out and went fishing together? This is going to be just like that, even though we won't see each other for a while . . . you can follow me in this, even as you followed me for these three years. Don't be sad, Peter: remember how I called you, and you came?"