Willing to Die

READ: ROMANS 5:6-10

The time: World War II. The place: a printing shop in a village in the Netherlands. Several men, including my grandfather, were busy working for the resistance, printing pamphlets against Hitler and the Nazis. They had been sending these pamphlets through the Underground for a long time to build support for the resistance.

Suddenly, the thing they had long feared came to pass. There was a banging on the door and a great deal of yelling as the German SS entered.

Everyone in the shop was arrested and jailed. They all pleaded innocent to working in the resistance—but, of course, they were guilty.

Some of the men were killed immediately, and the rest were interrogated. The SS wanted names of other resistance workers, so they beat the men to try to get that information. One man, we’ll call him Willem, returned from an interrogation session very badly wounded. Expecting not to survive the next day’s questioning, Willem spoke with my grandfather and gave him his wedding ring. Willem wanted his wife to have it should he die, so he asked my grandfather to take it to her, if he survived and was released.

Fortunately for my grandfather, no one mentioned his name as a resistance worker. The German SS accepted his claim to innocence—that he just “happened” to be there at the time of the raid—and they let him go. One of the first things he did was bring Willem’s ring to his widow.

Romans 5:7 says it’s rare that someone will die for someone else, but Willem did. By refusing to give the names of co-conspirators in the resistance, he saved several lives, including my grandfather’s, and condemned himself to death.

The Bible also says Jesus gave His life for us, but not because we were friends or partners. Romans 5:8 tells us that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Sinners! Those who reject God and go against His perfect law. We were enemies even (Romans 5:10)! But, because of His great love for us, Jesus gave His life for ours! • Rosanne Eising

• Can you think of a time someone gave up something for you, or you gave up something for someone else? What happened?

• For more about what Jesus’s sacrifice means for us, see our "Know Jesus" page.

[Jesus said,] “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13 (CSB)