Pastor Wilhelm Busch remembers

God sometimes has strange and wonderful preachers. Luke the doctor tells us in his Gospel that a criminal soon to die gave a tremendously impressive sermon from the cross on which he hung. And the Old Testament can tell us that even a real four-legged donkey once preached.

Some people don’t believe these stories. I believe them; for I know that God often chooses wondrous preachers of his truth.

Among these I am particularly impressed by a great, dead, burnt out building. Every time I pass by it, this house begins to preach me a sermon. And I know that it once preached for a whole night to many hundreds of people.

This strange building that preaches stands in the middle of a noisy city in the Ruhr district of southern Germany.

There must have been a rich Jewish congregation here once, to have been able to have such a magnificent synagogue built. It is a huge domed structure made of grey natural stone. Many years ago I once saw inside the building. The glory there completely matched the wonderful exterior. You could see that a great artist had designed and built this house.

Burning the synagogue

Then came that dreadful day which will for centuries be a dark blot on the history of our land; the day in which the German people altogether forgot that they had had Luther, Kant, Bach and Goethe, when with a huge leap it jumped back from the 20th century to the Middle Ages…

The mob raged; the Jewish shops were plundered, the Jews’ apartments demolished. Innocent people were kicked, beaten and shot…

A wild mass penetrated the glorious synagogue also, and set it on fire. Everything that could burn was devoured by the flames. But at the end there still stood the huge, now bare, domed structure. The great stone blocks had defied the flames.

At that time this building began to be an embarrassment. It was not speaking yet. But with its dead silence it began to worry people. The loudspeakers droned out about ‘the German cultural will’ — and there stood this house! Above the portal everyone could still read: ‘My house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples’. There it stood with its smoke blackened walls, its gaping window openings … while the loudspeakers announced that German armies had moved into Russia to carry forward German culture… People kept saying that this house ought to be pulled down. But — they never got round to doing that. It was as if they had lost the courage to lay hands again on the huge, mute building.

Waiting in silence

And the synagogue was silent — silent — as if it was waiting for the day when it would be able to speak.

And that day came!

That day began like every other day in the city. The businessmen went into their offices, the housewives did their washing or stood in queues in front of the shops, in which the wares were already becoming scarce; the miners went down into the depths, and others came up to the surface… It was the same as always. So the day passed. Evening came, the streets lay dark. All the houses were blacked out; all lights extinguished. It was war, after all, and already some bombs had fallen on the city.

At 9.00 pm the sirens sounded. The people ran into the cellars…

And then came the shock!

It was the first great attack with carpet bombing and firestorms. The people in the cellars felt the terrible heat. They rushed out. No! Many never made it to the outside. They found the entrances caved in, and were burnt alive…

But those who came out were horrified. All round the synagogue were narrow, densely populated streets. And now everything was in flames. Wherever you might turn — Fire! Fire! This terrible conflagration generated its own storm, which carried the roaring fire still further.

The people draped wet cloths round themselves and made off to see if they could find protection somewhere. But they found the exits from the streets blocked with rubble. The smoke robbed them of breath. Many keeled over and were struck down by falling walls, suffocated by the smoke, devoured by the fire.

The synagogue speaks

Those who got through searched, their eyes crazy with fear, for a place that offered protection from the fire. They found only one: the huge, bare, long since burnt out synagogue. Hundreds found rescue there in that terrible night.

There they sat, packed together and shivering on the bare floor, while outside horrific death went about. There they sat and now they could not run away, when the synagogue began to preach.

It was a terrible sermon. It consisted only of a single sentence: ‘Do not be deceived; God will not let himself be mocked; for what a man sows he will reap’ (Galatians 6.7).

There were some there who had taken part on that spring day when they had set this synagogue on fire. And the others had watched with curiosity, had laughed perhaps. Or at least, they had been silent. But — who had thought of God, the God who is not silent?!

Then the fire had devoured this one building. Now the town was engulfed in fire… And just this building was the refuge!

The synagogue preached. And even the most stubborn heard the sermon in that night of horror: ‘Do not be deceived; God will not let himself be mocked…’

But the story is not finished yet. Among the refugees was one to whom the synagogue preached a special sermon.

He was a simple man who earned a meagre wage in a coalmine. But he belonged to those people of whom the Lord Jesus says that they are ‘rich in God’.

This man sat among those people so full of consternation and was neither surprised nor worried. He was not surprised, because he had known long since from the word of God that this people were heading for dreadful judgements from God. And he was not worried because he had peace with God.

So now he sat in a corner, after he had helped many others to safety. He was tired; but there was no way anyone could sleep.

The place of safety

And then the synagogue began to preach a special sermon to him. It asked: ‘Do you actually know why you are safe here from the fire?’

And he answered, ‘Yes, because the fire has raged here once already and has devoured everything that could burn.’

‘Do you know also’, asked the synagogue, ‘that there is another more terrible fire than the one from which you have sheltered here?’

‘That I know well’, said the man, ‘that is the dreadful fire of the judgement and wrath of God, that will one day flare up against all the ungodliness and unholiness of man’s being.’

‘Then you already know a lot!’ said the synagogue, ‘But do you think you will find a refuge then, when that fire flares up? Do you think that then there will also be a place that can offer refuge because the fire has gone over it already?’

Now the man smiled among all those shocked and miserable people and said: ‘I know what you mean. Yes, there is one single place over which the fire of God’s wrath has already gone, which can therefore offer refuge: that is the cross of Jesus at Golgotha.’

‘You are right!’ said the synagogue. ‘Just look at me! How safe you are in my bosom, because I previously suffered the fire. And thus you are safe under the cross of Jesus. How the fire burned there, when Jesus cried: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — Now in that place you are safe to all eternity from the judgement of God.’

At that the simple man rejoiced that he knew about this eternal refuge. Then he lay down as well as he could in that crowded place and found he could now sleep Ð he rested peacefully, comforted like a child at his mother’s heart.

Extracted and translated by Christian Puritz from Pastor Wilhelm Busch Remembers, published by Quell, Guterslohe, 1972.

The synagogue that preached