Another Glimpse into God's Gallery of Grace

Read: Psalm 51; Luke 19:10

This week on January 27, the liberation of Auschwitz was remembered on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It has been 81 years since the world began to learn about the unspeakable atrocities that occurred there, and even now, a small number of survivors still tell their stories with the desire that this will never happen again. Before I continue to tell a story of God's powerful grace which can pierce through any darkness, may I stop to offer a prayer.

Lord, may Your comfort and love be known by those who still carry deep pain because of what they saw at Auschwitz and the other death camps. May many come to know that God so loved them that He sent the Messiah into His world so that they, along with us, could have eternal life, John 3:16.

Now here is the story. I love being reminded that God intertwines lives. Unexpectedly! Even when there are centuries between one life and another! Even when they involve people whose names we don't know. Of course, God knows each one and plans how the beautiful intertwining will take place! With that in mind, let's look at King David, Cai Höss, a loving and persistent couple and an unnamed Gideon. What could they have in common? God touched each of their lives with the beauty of His grace and brought them together at just the right time. Let's start with David. To think about him, we have to remember his sin with Bathsheba which occurred more than 1,000 years ago. How low David sank. Committing adultery with the wife of one of his mighty men. Murdering his lover's husband when he was told that Bathsheba was pregnant. So sad and, what David did displeased God, 2 Samuel 11:27. Oh, what a web of evil David spun. Sin brings about pain, doesn't it, and David's life displayed that truth in spades. However, the pain and consequences David experienced were only one side of the coin.

David experienced forgiveness and grace, and he wrote about it in Psalm 51. It is in this psalm that we hear David's cry for cleansing and forgiveness. Gifts that only God can give. The words in this psalm are an amazing picture of God's cleansing, and this truth was not only for David, it is for all who will reach out and take hold of the grace God offers. truth has no expiration date! A fact that we will shortly see. Oh, how the Lord made David, once again whiter than snow. How David experienced the cleansing and purging away of His guilt after he repented. Oh, the freedom the King knew after having spent months denying his sin. Yes, David's iniquities even murder, adultery and duplicity were taken away all because of grace. David was clean and wholly forgiven. God could open David's lips so that he could proclaim the wonder of grace. His words were to be a part of a redemption story that would unfold more than 1,000 years from the time when David lived. Now it is time to meet this man who is the second person in our grace quadrangle.

His name is Cai Höss. He is the grandson of Rudolf Höss, who was the commandant at Auschwitz. When Cai was growing up, he learned about World War II in school. Learning about what occurred during the war is mandatory, but Cai said that it was treated like water that had gone under the bridge. However, it wasn't long before he began to connect his name with the past, and he came to know who his grandfather was. It was, understandably a very hard thing to discover the truth that your relative had played such a significant role in the killing of six million Jews. Even so, Cai grew up and went on with life. He got into hotel management. While he was in Singapore, Cai became gravely ill, and that's when he met David. Cai was in the Intensive Care sick and depressed. In a drawer by his bed, he found a Gideon Bible, and he read Psalm 51. There he read that David the murderer cried out to God for forgiveness. That thought really struck him. Cai wondered if he too was capable of this kind of wickedness? Could he have done wicked things like his grandfather did?

Time for the next step on God's intertwining ladder. In a hotel in Singapore, he met the gracious couple who kept coming back and coming back. They patiently talked with Cai and invited him to church. Then, in 1989, Cai surrendered his life to Jesus. And now, what is Cai doing? He is a pastor in Stuttgart, Germany. He loves to meet Jewish people and hold out the love of God and his love to them. Here are Cai's words concerning God's grace and his love for the Jewish people:

“Our Creator allowed the creatures he made to nail him to the cross. And yet, as the hymn says, his amazing grace has saved a wretch like me! And I want to serve a purpose in his redemptive economy.”

As part of this, Kai has since shared something of God’s love for the many Holocaust survivors he has met. “It’s always a very humbling experience, and I just want to give them a hug. It’s heartbreaking.” One man who lost his entire family at Auschwitz came up to embrace him, saying: “I love you and I forgive you.” And in London he met an elderly lady still with a camp tattoo on her arm who remembered his grandfather. “I felt joy that God had enabled me to show her love in this way.”

Okay, we've watched how God intertwined David's life, with Cai. We have seen the loving couple who kept coming back to him. There's one more person sitting in the background. We don't know anything about this one except that it is this one who placed the Gideon Bible in the drawer so Cai could open it and begin to read about both his need and God's sweet grace. How great is God to place all these people in the life of one man so he could be made new and have his eternal destiny changed. Did that Gideon wondered if what he did made a difference? We do sometimes, don't we. Let's be encouraged by this reminder of our awesome God and that He is not limited in the way He makes Himself known. Some of us see how God has used them like this loving couple did. Some people don't know in the here and now what wonders God has done through them. Some people, like David, are used like billboards because of their sin and God's overarching grace.

Praise Jesus for all the ways he has, and continues to hold out His love. He is continuing to seek and save the lost, Luke 19:10!