Tuesday, December 28

The Bridge:

I (Ken) have had the privilege of leading 4 mission trips to the Czech Republic over the last four years.  If you know your Czech history, you know that it existed under Communist rule for over 40 years.  And if you know your Marxist doctrine you know that the eradication of religion or the belief in a being greater than humankind is central to communist thought.  What that means is that for 40 years any form of religion, including Christianity, was forbidden.

Over the years, as I have talked with Czechs and shared the gospel with them, one of the major roadblocks to their trusting in the gospel has been this question: “Where was GOD for those 40 years?”

To be honest, I have wrestled that myself.  I’m sure if you and I were sitting over coffee right now we could come up with myriad reasons why it would seem that GOD had forgotten or left alone the Czech people for so long.

One of my Czech friends thinks that the Czech people had abandoned GOD long before the tanks with red stars on them rolled into Prague, and that GOD left them to their own devices, kind of like Romans 1.  I on the other hand, don’t think GOD ever left, or ever forgot about the Czech people.

The Charles Bridge, possibly the Czech Republic’s most well known architectural monument has stood over the Vltava River connecting Old Town Prague with New Town Prague and the Castle district since the early 1400’s.  And lining the bridge, on either side, are statues of various saints as well as a couple of statues of Jesus.  One statue of Jesus stands near the center of the bridge and is the most popular of all the statues.

Another statue was erected in 1955 which stood on the top of a large hill overlooking the city, it was the largest statue of Joseph Stalin ever erected, it stood over 50 feet high and just over 72 feet long.  They blew it up in 1962 after Stalin was convicted of mass genocide of his own people.

Today another statue stands where Stalin’s once stood, it’s a giant metronome and it signifies the unstable history of the Czech Republic as it has changed hands many times throughout it’s history.

A couple of years ago I stood on the bridge in front of the statue of Jesus and was contemplating the question I had heard multiple times from Czechs: Where was GOD for those 40 years?  And it struck me that this statue of Jesus has been standing here for 600 years.  As I stood there, I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed the first two years while standing in this very same spot.  In the distance, behind the statue, I saw the Metronome ticking back and forth as a reminder of all the times the Czech had changed hands over the last 600 years.  And then I realized that at one time Stalin’s statue was in the background and that it had been blown up. 

And it struck me that conquerors had come and gone, governments had come and gone, political ideologies had come and gone, philosophies had come and gone, but through all of it, the Jesus statue stood here as a proclamation of the grace that is offered us through his blood shed on the cross.

As I stood there a passage from Romans flooded my mind:

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8.37-39

And I realized that even as every tongue with the message of the gospel fell silent during those 40 years, the gospel was still being proclaimed as one walked across the bridge and looked at the statues.  And anyone who knew Christ could be encouraged, and could find hope in Christ who has stood the test of time, and regime, and history.

Christ is greater than Charles IV, He is greater than Stalin, greater than Lenin.  Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. *

This all causes me to think: What have I been placing my hope other than Christ?  Myself?  My job?  A political leader or ideology?  My morals?   

- Ken Lippold



*Colossians 1.15-20