Holocaust Remembrance Day
Notes
Transcript
I am going to begin today by reading a couple of passages from Lamentations. These passages, written by Jeremiah after the destruction of Jerusalem, will provide us a context for today. The first is Lam. 2:11
My eyes are filled with tears. My stomach is in torment. My heart is poured out on the ground over the destruction of the daughter of my people— as young children and infants languish in the city squares.
And a second passage is Lam. 3:48-51
Streams of tears run down my eyes because of the destruction of the daughter of my people. My eye flows unceasingly, without stopping, until Adonai looks down from heaven and sees. My eye torments my soul because of all the daughters of my city.
Feeling the Weight of the Holocaust
Feeling the Weight of the Holocaust
I was reading through the sermon I did last year for Holocaust Remembrance Day and realized that when writing it, i had not truly felt the weight of what the Holocaust was all about. But 6 months ago I went to the LCJE international conference in Poland. While there, we visited 2 places. One of those was Auschwitz the other was a memorial called the Fountain of Tears. These 2 places opened my heart both to more pain, and to more hope than I had thought possible.
Allow me to share share one experience with you all. First of all, Auschwitz is huge and is made up of 3 different camps. We visited Auschwitz I which holds a lot of the museum, and then later visited Auschwitz-Birkenau (II). The story I wish to share comes from the second.
We entered Birkenau later in the afternoon, having spent most of the day in the Museum. We visited several of the the barracks and then were told that we had about 10 min before we had to leave. But there was was so much in my heart that was still unresolved. I had to see the Crematorium with my own eyes.
I was told that that they were at the other end of the camp, about a mile’s walk away. So I jogged there, not thinking, but with my heart breaking with every step. The numbers of lives lost here, who had died here, was too much to fully take in.
When I reached the other end of the camp I was confronted by the desolation. The buildings had been destroyed just before the camp had been closed, but no one dared to remove the stones or to rebuild the buildings. The ground was too hallowed.
I looked to the right and to the left and saw the remains of the destroyed buildings, with the words of Kelvin Crombie echoing in my ears, “Over 500,000 people died within this 100 meter square.”
How to describe the feeling? The anger boiled over, but was quickly replaced with total sorrow. But even this was washed over by the total silence of the place, the abandonment and the desolation.
“Because of the brokenness of the daughter of my people, I am brokenhearted. I mourn—desolation grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Then why has no healing gone up for the daughter of my people? If only my head were water and my eyes a fountain of tears, then I would weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
Filled with bitterness
Filled with bitterness
In the middle chapter of Lamentations, Jeremiah cries out: Lam. 3:14-19
I have become a laughing stock to all my people, their song all day long. He has filled me with bitterness and made me drink wormwood. He broke my teeth with gravel. He made me wallow in ashes. My soul has been deprived of shalom, I have forgotten goodness. So I said, “My endurance has perished, and my hope from Adonai.” Remember my affliction my homelessness, bitterness and gall.
This reminded me of the Psalm 22:2-22
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Distant from my salvation are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cried out by day, but You did not answer, by night, but there was no rest for me. Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In You our fathers put their trust. They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to you and were delivered. In You they trusted, and were not disappointed. Am I a worm, and not a man? Am I a scorn of men, despised by people? All who see me mock me. They curl their lips, shaking their heads: “Rely on Adonai! Let Him deliver him! Let Him rescue him— since he delights in Him!” Yet You brought me out of the womb, made me secure at my mother’s breasts. From the womb I was cast on You— from my mother’s womb You have been my God. Be not far from me! For trouble is near— there is no one to help. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan encircled me. They open wide their mouths against me, like a tearing, roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax— melting within my innards. My strength is dried up like a clay pot, my tongue clings to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. A band of evildoers has closed in on me. They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They stare, they gape at me. They divide my clothes among them, and cast lots for my garment. But You, Adonai, be not far off! O my strength! Come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword— my only one from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth. From the horns of the wild oxen rescue me.
Immediately after visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, walked over to a house nearby. There, Rick Wienecke has set up a second rendition of the artwork he created in Arad, Israel.
Rick himself was in Poland at the time and took us through what is tiled “The Fountain of Tears.”
I will play a 5 min video to give an overview of this artwork:
https://fountainoftears.org/
Luke writes about Yeshua, on the night that he was betrayed, Lk. 22:39-44
And Yeshua came out and went as usual to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed Him. When he reached the place, He said to them, “Pray that you will not enter into temptation.” And He pulled back about a stone’s throw from them, got on His knees, and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him. And in His anguish, He was praying fervently; and His sweat was like drops of blood falling down on the ground.
Could it be, that the same way that the Jewish people suffered, so also the Jewish Messiah suffered? The prophet Isaiah, when speaking of the Jewish Messiah said: Isa. 53:3-5
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, One from whom people hide their faces. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our pains. Yet we esteemed Him stricken, struck by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities. The chastisement for our shalom was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
Where does this leave us?
Where does this leave us?
While we have only looked at a small piece of the Holocaust, what I can say conclusively is this: That Yeshua identifies with the suffering of the Jewish people, and with us.
The author of Hebrews puts it this way: Heb. 4:14-16
Therefore, since we have a great Kohen Gadol who has passed through the heavens, Yeshua Ben-Elohim, let us hold firmly to our confessed allegiance. For we do not have a kohen gadol who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all the same ways—yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near to the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need.
Now I know many Jewish people that will claim that the Nazi’s were Christian, and that there is a direct link between the Crucifixion and the Holocaust. However to this Yeshua said in Matt. 7:15-23
“Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruit. Grapes aren’t gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, are they? Even so, every good tree produces good fruit, but the rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize them by their fruit. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, and drive out demons in Your name, and perform many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Get away from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’ ”
What is the lesson?
What is the lesson?
I want to close with this photo. It is a picture take after the Holocaust but before the establishment of Israel as a nation in 1948. This picture show the British soldiers actively preventing the Jewish people from entering Palestine (as it was called then).
I want to read the summary that I wrote last year. I believe that it is all the more important based upon Australia’s response to Oct. 7th
Is the lesson of the Holocaust that the Nazis were monsters? Is the lesson of the Holocaust that the Devil is a bad Devil? Is the lesson that God is unfair, unavailable or cruel?
No.
The lesson is that any of us could fall and become just like the Nazis. Any nation could exalt themselves above God and become the tool of HaSatan. And as for Adonai being unfair, quite the contrary. Adonai allowed exactly what He said would happen. He warned the Children of Israel, again and again and again. And just like the people of Israel, Adonai has warned this nation of Australia again and again.
But just as Adonai showed mercy and forgiveness to the people of Israel, and fulfilled His promise to bring them back to the land of Israel, so also Adonai gives Australia the same option to repent.
If we do repent, and return to God, then He will heal this nation. If we do not repent, then the Lord of Heaven and Earth will measure out His justice upon this nation with the same severity that He measured it out on the Children of Israel.
I pray that we learn this lesson of the Holocaust.