Where was God during the Holocaust?

Our theme for 2022 is “Begin Again”

Today and the next two Sundays I will be preaching on “Hot Topics”

I have been doing this for the last three years - giving you the opportunity to tell me what you would like to hear me preach on.

It can be a question, an issue or a passage of scripture that you have not understood.

Because of our India trip, my series in Genesis ran into July and we will be having some guest speakers again in August, but I have a few weeks in here to tackle some of your questions.

Our first question comes from a member of our congregation who asked, “Pastor Joel, What should I say to a Jewish person who doesn’t want God in her life. She says, ‘where was God when the Nazis killed nearly six million Jews?’”

That is a very real question - and one that was probably intended to end the conversation about God.

After all, what can you say to a person who is grieving such a tragic loss.

It doesn’t matter that the loss happened eighty years ago.

African Americans are still mourning the effects of slavery in America.

American Indians are still feeling the loss of their identity and sovereignty.

My ancestors, the Anabaptist were persecuted and killed for their beliefs by other early Protestants and Catholics.

I remember hearing the stories when I was a child, even though it was several hundred years ago.

We were afraid it could happen again.

When it comes to these questions of mass atrocities we should not dismiss them - it is important that we remember!

When we remember, it is OK to ask the question, Where was God?

If you ask it honestly, you will discover that He was there; though not in the way that you might have looked for Him.

And finally, when we are ready, it is helpful to ask, “what might this event look like from God’s perspective?”

Too often we try to begin by trying to find some meaning in tragic events, but that is not possible when the pain is still fresh and so intense.

Meaning only comes later as we are looking back on them and after the healing has begun.

Today we are talking about the holocaust, but for any survivor of tragedy or trauma; you can use these same steps in your own recovery.

Remembering the holocaust.

I had the privilege of visiting Israel in 2017.

Every visitor to Israel is requested to visit Vad Yashem - the holocaust remembrance museum.

Because of the continued threat of anti-semitism, the continued existence of the state of Israel is dependent on remembering what it looks like when genocide occurs.

The Holocaust was unprecedented genocide, total and systematic, perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, with the aim of annihilating the Jewish people. The primary motivation was the Nazis' anti-Semitic racist ideology. Between 1933 and 1941 Nazi Germany pursued a policy that dispossessed the Jews of their rights and their property, followed by the branding and the concentration of the Jewish population. This policy gained broad support in Germany and much of occupied Europe. In 1941, following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis and their collaborators launched the systematic mass murder of the Jews. By 1945 nearly six million Jews had been murdered.

Genocide is when an entire race, religion or ethnic group is targeted for destruction.

Since the holocaust, it has been internationally recognized as a crime and is identifiable in five specific forms:

Killing members of the group.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

All of this happened to the Jews during the holocaust.

It was after the holocaust that the term “genocide” was first used.

And because of the holocaust, most nations no longer tolerate mass murders and ethnic cleansing.

Where these things occur, they can be prosecuted as crimes against humanity.

As you walk through Yad Vashem , the stories of thousands of Jewish victims are told through pictures, and media.

Beginning in 1939 the Jews in Eastern Europe were herded into ghettos.

They were isolated from the rest of the world, loosing their property and their rights as citizens.

Nazi propaganda blamed to Jews for societies ills and because they were perceived as a threat, they were confined.

Mass murder would not have been possible without mass deception.

The Holocaust was not a single event. It did not happen all at once. It was the result of circumstances and events, as well as individual decisions, played out over years. Key political, moral, and psychological lines were crossed until the Nazi leadership eventually set in motion the unimaginable—a concrete, systematic plan to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. -

To understand the holocaust, we need to understand what was happening at the time.

This was after World War 1 when the old monarchies were loosing power and populist movements were rising.

Hitler and the Nazis were viewed by many to be the “good guys” who could defeat the communists.

The “great depression” began in America in 1929, but it also impacted Europe.

People were scared, angry and desperate for someone to lead them and for someone to blame.

It is not clear when the decision was made to exterminate the Jews.

There is no surviving paper trail for this decision.

Among Hitler’s top commanders, the plan was code named “the final solution.”

People, including the Jews, were told that the Jews were being relocated “for their safety” and that they were being resettled in thriving communities.

Most of the population, even though they were prejudiced against the Jews would not have supported what was really happening if they only knew.

While there was some reports that got out from survivors to Jewish communities, they were drowned out by the volume of propaganda.

When the concentration camps were liberated after the war, the generals, who knew that atrocities were taking place - were still surprised and horrified by the magnitude of what they saw.

While it is difficult to remember, it is also important!

To be honest, I don’t really enjoy talking about the holocaust- I don’t think anyone does.

But it is important to remember, because if we do not remember we will not learn from what has happened.

History is know to repeat itself where people refuse to remember and to learn.

Someone might say, “shouldn’t we rather forgive what happened and the people who did these things?”

I do believe that forgiveness is absolutely necessary for our own healing.

If we allow the pain of tragedy to consume us, we may become just as irrational as those who commit such crimes.

But forgiveness is not forgetting.

It is not pushing those feelings down and refusing to acknowledge or remember them.

That is repression - and it almost guarantees that that our pain will emerge again in a way that we cannot control.

1 John 1:5–7 ESV

5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Forgiveness is only possible because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

He took the pain of the world upon His own body and died to release it.

The cross is what makes forgiveness possible.

God Himself, suffered so that we would have a place to go with our suffering.

It is right to be angry at injustice, but only the injustice done to Jesus can balance the scales.

For the almost six million Jews who were killed in the holocaust, only Jesus blood can atone for their lives.

My long-time friend, Lonnie Lane, is a Jewish believer who has written many outstanding articles for Sid Roth’s Messianic Vision’s website on a number of Jewish issues. One of these articles contains the following testimony from the gas chambers of the concentration camps, and is both quoted verbatim and paraphrased below, with the author’s permission. During a time that Lonnie was writing articles for a Messianic publication, she had access to the archives of the magazine, which were kept in a vault. Deep within the vault were copies of this magazine from the 1930-1940s.

“Shortly after WWII several articles were written by Jewish believers who had been in the death camps but were liberated before it was ‘their turn.’ Without going into detail as to how they were able to observe this phenomenon, one person reported that a man in white robes was seen on several occasions walking among and interacting with the people in the‘s showers’ just before the gas was turned on. He would have been the only person wearing clothing,” and as such would stand out from the others as unique among them. “It could only be Yeshua! He came to them in their final hour.”

Lonnie reported that another article revealed that many Jews had become believers in Yeshua, and it estimated that approximately ten percent of the Jews in the camps were saved. That means thousands, even hundreds of thousands. Lonnie concluded, “That means God was faithful to rescue eternally those who wanted to follow Him. Our wonderful God. Our gracious Yeshua. Our merciful Savior.” I had never read anything like this stunning testimony, and I was deeply affected by it for many weeks.

Jill Shannon, A Prophetic Calendar: The Feasts of Israel, 2008, p. 75-76

Asking, “Where was God?”

Psalm 94:1–7 ESV

1 O Lord, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! 2 Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve! 3 O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? 4 They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. 5 They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. 6 They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; 7 and they say, “The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

The psalmist puts words to our feelings.

Sometimes it seems like God isn’t watching.

And if He isn’t watching; He doesn’t care.

Because if he saw and cared, even a little bit, He would have to do something!

God is there.

The short answer to the question, “Where was God…? “ is He was there!

That would be true whether we are talking about the holocaust or your friend or family member who died of unnatural causes.

It’s true of the tragic accident that takes the lives of a young family.

And it’s true of the child who is abducted, raped and murdered.

It’s difficult for us to imagine God being present in such a circumstance because being present makes Him passive.

Hebrews 4:13 NLT

13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

I have been in ministry for 20 years now; much of that time has been spent in pastoral counseling.

I have sat with people who have had the most horrible things happen to them, sometimes at the hands of other people.

For a while, I specialized in trauma counseling and people who suffered from DID - dissociative identity disorder.

These are people who have experience horrific abuse at a young age where there identity was not fully formed, so that the trauma became associated with an identity that they created.

Later in life when they are in a safe place that can provide healing, they recall the trauma, but not without manifesting as an alternate personality which contained (and protected) the memory of the trauma.

Part of healing is being able to remember from a safe place where they are not constantly reliving the experience.

In my sessions, I would typically invite Jesus to reveal Himself in that experience.

I can do so objectively, because He is everywhere present.

Usually, the presence of Jesus in a memory is an immediate comfort.

The few times where it was not was because there was a demonic influence portraying a false Jesus.

One client, who has given me permission to share her story, was a victim of satanic ritual abuse. She would manifest as a small child when recalling these events. One time, in the middle of describing terrible memory, she asked the question, “Why would God allow this to happen to me?”

Knowing that she had the ability to hear God for herself, I said, “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Him?”

She paused for a moment while she listened and answered, “He said that He allowed it to happen because He knew that He could heal me.”

God is active.

What is God doing? In the holocaust? or in any tragic circumstance?

God is saving, healing and restoring.

That’s who God is and that’s what God does!

There are also parts of Vad Yashem that tell the heroic stories of those who helped to rescue the Jews during the holocaust.

The non-Jews who helped to hide or rescue the Jews are referred to as the “righteous among the nations.”

To date (2017), Yad Vashem has recognized 26,513 Righteous from 51 countries and nationalities; there are Christians from all denominations and churches, Muslims and agnostics,  men and women of all ages. They come from all walks of life: highly educated people as well as illiterate peasants; public figures as well as people from the margins of society; city dwellers and farmers from the remotest corners of Europe; university professors, teachers, physicians, clergy, nuns, diplomats, simple workers, servants, resistance fighters, policemen, peasants, fishermen, a zoo director, a circus owner, and many more.

German businessman Oskar Schindler was able to save more than a thousand Jews.

Most of those were on his list of workers that he said he needed for a new ammunition factory.

The factory did not exist; he was moving them to safety.

When I was in Denmark, I heard the story of Kristalnacht.

Denmark was occupied but retained it’s own governance.

They found out about the plan to gather up the Jews living in Denmark.

Danes warned their Jewish neighbors and they were smuggled on boats to Sweden.

Denmark was able to save over 7000 Jews; 90% of the Jews were saved.

And the reports are that many who returned found their houses kept and cared for by their neighbors.

So where was God?

I think God was very active in all of this.

We tend to look at the evil and ask “Where is God?” while ignoring the good that is happening, sometimes in small ways by ordinary people.

As a pastor, sometimes I am asked to go to where a tragic event has happened.

I might be asked to visit someone who is dying.

I might be called when an accident happens.

I might be counseling someone who is going through a personal crisis.

I have learned to always ask the question, “God, where are you in this circumstance?”

I ask the question because I know He is there!

He may be in some small detail that I will miss if I only look at the horror of what is happening.

I look for the good in the story, even if it is just people comforting each other.

God is there and God is good - look for the good!

God grieves.

I say this because we need to hear it.

When we ask, “where is God?”, sometimes our preconceived idea is that God is aloof, removed an uninterested.

Why would we believe that?

Because God has more important things to do.

He would never condescend to be with us in our suffering...

The God that I know would … and does!

John 11:33–36 NLT

33 When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. 34 “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Then Jesus wept. 36 The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”

before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he wept.

That one little verse is the shortest verse in the Bible, but it says volumes!

Jesus is God, but he wept.

Jesus could raise the dead, but he wept.

Jesus knew it wasn’t over, but he wept.

I guess God has feelings after all!

Where is God? And what is God doing in such terrible tragedy?

He’s weeping.

He grieves right along with us.

It doesn’t mean things are hopeless; far from it!

It just means that He feels what we feel.

If someone is asking the question, “Where was God?” they are probably grieving and they need someone to grieve with them.

We are going to move on to the last step, but not so fast.

Sometimes we just need time to acknowledge and to feel our emotions before we are ready to resolve them.

Skipping this step can result in our unexpressed grief coming out in ways that we never intended.

The next time we face grief or loss, it becomes complicated by feelings that are disproportionate to the loss.

Or our hearts become hard and we become shallow in our ability to feel the pain of others.

When you have moved through your grief, you are finally ready to consider making sense of it, but you no longer have a need to because you are already comforted.

Putting it all in perspective.

James 1:2–4 NLT

2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

First of all, let me say that I hate it when I am going through grief and someone throws this scripture at me.

Really? You want me to have joy?! Are you serious?!?

Yes. But it is appropriate to grieve first.

There is a sequence to these things.

First empathy, then perspective.

God is good.

This is what you need to know.- God is still good.

God’s character does not change with your circumstances.

The dark cloud above you may block out the sun, but you have to know that the sun is still up there somewhere shining.

If it were not so, we would already be dead!

Evil is real - and sometimes it is really scary!

But God did not create evil - God created the world and everything in it good - because God is good.

Evil is a distortion and a disruption of what is good.

Evil may win the battle, but it can never win the war.

John Lennon is quoted as saying “everything will be OK in the end, if its not OK, it’s not the end.

There is some truth to that.

The Bible begins with a perfect world and ends with a restored world, but in between there are a lot of moments that make you wonder...

God’s plans are for good.

We can find consolation in the fact that God has an ultimate plan and it is good.

Jeremiah 29:11 ESV

11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

This verse was written to people going through their own personal holocaust.

They were exiles in Babylon - a wicked city.

Their homeland had been ransacked.

They witnessed the killing of friends and family members.

And not Jeremiah the prophet is writing, telling them to make the most of their new situation.

It must have sounded like James 1 to them - ridiculous.

But Jeremiah is talking about an ultimate plan - one that would take more than seventy years to fulfill.

And then there is Daniel’s vision of God’s plan - that one would take more than 490 years - in fact we are still waiting for the ending on that one.

Ephesians 1:9–10 ESV

9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

God’s plan is to bring everything under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

His plan is for that be voluntary, although at some point it may be involuntary.

Evil grows and multiplies in the earth largely by remaining hidden.

Evil masquerades as good.

Because if people recognized evil as evil, they wouldn’t want it.

Just as if people knew what was really happening during WW2, and some people figured it out, they wouldn’t have allowed it to go on as long as it did.

I believe that sometimes God allows evil to do what evil wants to do so that evil is seen for what it really is.

What is God desire for each of us?

That we recognize our sinful nature and repent, turning to Him for forgiveness and transformation.

If God intervened before things got bad, we might still be deceived into thinking what we are doing is good.

We have been studying Genesis - let me give you a few examples:

God intervened with the flood, but only when things got so bad that nobody knew what good was anymore.

God intervened at Babel, but only because mankind was totally convinced that they were right in rebelling against God.

Why didn’t God stop the holocaust? - I believe He did. But just like these other examples - he allowed evil to flourish long enough to see it for what it is.

And because of the holocaust, genocide is now recognized as the atrocity that it is and world governments are more likely to intervene when they see it happening.

And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that there is a spiritual battle going on behind all of this that God is also exposing in the process.

Here’s what I know...

God turns bad things into good things.

I do not believe that God causes bad things to happen.

James 1:13–14 NLT

13 And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. 14 Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.

To accuse God of instigating evil is the very definition of heresy.

Evil exists because we have a God-given choice that we misuse.

People are the problem, not God.

And behind people are often spiritual forces that they have sold out to thinking that they will get power, pleasure or fame in return.

But God only knows the degree to which evil people are deceived and whether they might still repent.

I believe that much of what God tolerates, He does so because He knows that repentance is still possible.

God can more than make up for any pain or loss that a believer suffers, but there may only be one opportunity to rescue a soul from hell that might otherwise be lost.

It’s somewhat comforting to think that Jesus was there ministering to Jews in the gas chambers.

But Jesus was also offering a choice to every soldier, every neighbor, everyone whose eyes were open enough to see that what was happening was somehow wrong.

By recognizing evil they would know enough to repent and turn from it.

God is not behind the tempting, but He is behind the turning.

God turns bad things into good things.

He redeems, because that is his plan.

He restores because He is good.

“Where was God?” - you ask.

He is where He has always been.

He is here with open arms to everyone who will turn to Him.

Questions for reflection:

If you are listening today and you have a “Where was God when...?” question, its OK to ask. It is good to remember. It is even good to grieve. Will you allow God to grieve with you?

Maybe today’s message has stirred up some anger and resentment. Do you feel like you want to place blame? Remember it was the same attitudes that allowed the Nazis to justify their actions against the Jews? Wouldn’t you rather take it to Jesus and leave it at the cross?

The same spiritual forces behind this great deception are still at work in the world today. And you can be sure that God is also working to expose evil and to turn peoples hearts to good. How can you join God in this?