"And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of............" (Hebrews 11:32)
"....to tell of," whom?--- thousands, millions of the Faithful, those who, "follow the Lamb wherever He goes," those who could as easily be in Hebrews 11 and those who are there.
This coming Saturday, August 13, 2011, will be the 50th anniversary of the Berlin Wall. The city was divided at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 (I have been in the building where the conference was held), and barbed wire and other barriers existed prior, but it wasn't until 1961 that the Russians realized that their East German buffer state was losing people at an alarming rate, and the barbed wire was replaced with concrete. The Church particularly came under intense pressure. People who were members of congregations in West Berlin were not heard from for months, some for years.
I cannot begin to tell you how I felt when I first stood at Check Point Charlie. John Kennedy said, essentially, that if people wanted to understand the cold war, the confrontation between communism and democracy, "Let them come to Berlin." I felt exactly the same when I first stood at the Berlin Wall. History is full of such attempts to divide a people group for many reasons. But as I stood at Check Point Charlie for the first time, I remember the words which I spoke, "This is an aberration of history; it can't last." It didn't. Such is the end of all wickedness. Hebrews 11 tells us that no matter what we may have to face as individuals or as the Church of Jesus Christ, as Franklin Roosevelt said moments after the attack on Pearl Harbor, "we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God." Well, God will help us. All committed radically to Jesus Christ have the whole of Sacred Writ to attest to "the inevitable triumph" of, "the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the Truth," even Jesus the Christ.
Father, in Jesus' Name, thank You for Your "inevitable triumph." Amen.
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A Map of Berlin and border crossings
The construction begins
It will be 50 years on August 13, 2011. It was actually a Sunday. The church in which I was to have some friends years later, gathered on that Sunday. August 13 morning. Half of the congregation did not show up.
Once called "The Most Dangerous Place on Earth"
Sign at Check Point Charlie.
U.S. Tanks of the 40th Armor at Friedrichstrasse
Check Point Charlie, Late October, 1961
I Stood at the spot to which the arrow is pointing during my first time in Berlin, May 1986. Beyond is East Berlin Border with guard tower
I stood on the brown platform on the left. This is Potsdammer Platz. It was once the most busy intersection in Europe.
There were over 116 guard towers along the wall
A City Divided
Couple of Bernauerstrasse, Berlin, "wave to relatives after their wedding, 8th September 1961. The newlyweds live in the western sector of Berlin, while their relatives living on the same street are in the Eastern sector and unable to attend the ceremony."
According to Google Translator, the sign reads, "Road closure caused by the wall of shame"
Videos Account of Confrontation:
