From Longing to Longing: Richard and the Crude Russian Officer

Today, I’m going to tell a fascinating story which will take us back to the series my last post interrupted .

The series I interrupted was about atheism, secularism, religion, and education, in response to some questions from a reader. Rather heavy, I suppose. So, in my previous post I lightened the reading up by telling  you a heartwarming story from my own experience recently in which I spent three days with two friends from high school, our memories reaching back many decades.  I hope you enjoyed the account and photos.

Today’s true story reaches back to World War II (yes, before my time!). I referred to this incident in my post on September 14. I have included this story in chapter 11 of my unpublished Bible study, A Traveler’s Guide through Suffering and Joy. This is the story of  “Richard and The Crude Russian Officer”.

Last week I took this photo a few blocks from our home. The trees are changing color earlier this year.  I wonder, “What time of year did the Russian officer meet Richard?” I don’t know, but the meeting brought more color into the lives of each man, and mine too, just by reading the story.

World War II is over. Russian communism has now come to power in Romania. This story is told by a Jewish believer in Jesus as the Messiah who before the war had become a Christian pastor in Romania. During the war, he and his wife are arrested and beaten, which prepares them for greater persecution during the coming years under communist rule. He does not know that he will spend fourteen years in communist prison in his homeland. He is now free, but only temporarily.

This pastor has a deep longing. What is it? To share Christ with Russians. Why? As a youth, though Jewish, he had been an atheist and communist. Now he believes that it would be “heaven on earth” to share Christ with Russians, just as an old carpenter in a mountain village of Romania had longed and prayed to share Christ with a Jewish man. And so, through the witness of the old carpenter, Richard Wurmbrand comes to Christ. Now Richard longs and prays.

An Orthodox priest who does not know Russian, but knows that Richard knows Russian introduces him to a Russian officer. Providentially, Richard’s hunger to preach to Russians meets this particular Russian officer’s hunger for God. Yet, this officer has not “the slightest knowledge of [God]” and has never even seen a Bible. He visits Richard’s home where the pastor and his wife warmly welcome him. Richard reads from the Bible to the man. Richard Wurmbrand must now tell you the story.*

“I read to him the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus. After hearing them, he danced around the room in rapturous joy proclaiming, ‘What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!’ It was the first time that I saw someone so joyful in Christ.

Then I made a mistake. I read to him the passion and crucifixion of Christ, without having prepared him for this. He had not expected it and, when he heard how Christ was beaten, how He was crucified and that in the end He died, he fell into an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead!

I looked at him and was ashamed…. I had never shared the sufferings of Christ as this Russian officer now shared them. Looking at him, it was like seeing Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross, faithfully weeping when Jesus was a corpse in the tomb.

Then I read to him the story of the resurrection and watched his expression change. He has not known that his Savior arose from the tomb. When he heard this wonderful news, he beat his knees and swore — using very dirty, but very ‘holy’ profanity. This was his crude manner of speech. Again he rejoiced, shouting for joy. ‘He’s alive! He’s alive!’ He dance around the room once more, overwhelmed with happiness.”

As the Russian officer takes in an accurate picture of the Son of God through the Word of God, he rejoices with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. Crude exclamations have never been so lovely. Richard Wurmbrand invites the officer to pray. He has never prayed! Wurmbrand recounts his first prayer, doxological expressions:

“Oh God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You of Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all my heart.”

Wurmbrand showcases God to the Russian officer simply by reading the Scriptures to him while kindly offering home hospitality to this stranger. Up to now God has been obfuscated, indeed, hidden from the man. This officer has had no control over many elements of his own story: when and where he was born, as well as the government, family, and education under which his life was shaped. Yet, he had some choices.

Deep within his spirit stirred a craving for the “numinous” (as C.S. Lewis and some others would call that mysterious recognition of and longing for the divine). He could have buried it. He could have refused to give it attention. As Romas 1:18 explains, he could have “suppress[ed] the truth in unrighteousness”. However, God had set in motion the revelation of His glory from before time when He designed a creation through which He would make Himself evident within His image-bearers and throughout His creation, which would manifest His “invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature” (Romans 1:18-21).

This Russian officer did not know God. Before meeting Richard Wurmbrand, he had no exposure to the Scriptures. He did not even know himself very well. Yet, his story powerfully illustrates the reality of this Romans chapter one discourse in reversal —  through his positive, doxological posture, rather than through the negative, judgment-inducing posture described in the text toward the ungodly. Rather than accepting the suppressive, dishonest teaching of his government and education, he listened to the teaching of his longing: “that which is know about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them” (Romans 1:19). By seeking the God he wishes to exist but has been taught does not exist, the officer honors the God he wants to know. By exchanging depraved suppression and futile speculations for the light of the Word which Richard Wurmbrand reads to him, his dark heart is illuminated. He enters into faith.

Here, we are hushed. Selah: think on all of this.

The light of the Word of God that enters this officer expresses itself in joyous glory to God. Crude as he presently is, he glorifies God by gratefully showcasing his agreement with who God reveals Himself to be from the Scriptures he has heard, and he recognizes how different God is from himself! He recognizes God’s goodness and his own sinfulness and neediness. The man’s joy, his doxological joy, is rooted in his own suffering, for he has been spiritually abused. The degree of his starvation enriches the potency of his joy.

I’ve used the word doxological twice. Doxology. What is it? The word is built from two Greek roots: doxa and logos. Doxa (a noun) is from dokeo (a verb) which means “to think, recognize, glory”.  Logos means word, discourse, or intelligence, from which we get our word, logic. At the root of doxology is the thinking, reasoning process, one of mankind’s greatest divine gifts, designed uniquely for us, God’s image-bearers. Through our thinking, which directs our attitudes and activities, we are designed to reflect specific characteristics of our Creator-God.

I suppose that when most people think of the word, doxology, if they know anything about it, think of the hymn entitled “The Doxology”: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow…”  sung mainly in more liturgical churches nowadays. But before you can praise God, you must think on God, and think rightly about Him (John 4:24), and come to know God (Psalm 46:10). Doxa + logos = “glory word”. True thoughts about God will cause praise (and wonder and fear and all that is proper in response).

True and logical thought about God must be expressed, exposed, communicated, showcased, that is, shared. Because doxology is the expression of what is real, what is true, who God truly is as He has made Himself known, then doxology becomes praise. God is good; God does good (Psalm 119:68), and God works all things together for good to those who love Him… (Romans 8:28-29). Doxology pulls back the curtain to show His glory. To glorify is to showcase what is real about God.

Richard Wurmbrand and this crude Russian officer both express doxology this day of their meeting. – when Richard’s longing to share Christ meets the officer’s longing for this unknown Christ, and the longings are satisfied. Both have suffered deeply and their suffering is not done, but it is met by doxological joy. God is honored.

What does this have to do with our series on atheism, secularism, religion, and education?

The crux is doxology: knowing God inwardly in true thought expressed outwardly in true word and godly deed; this indeed is life (John. 17:3).  Such life is impossible in the vacuum of secularism.

Just as atheistic USSR sought to vacuum God, the Bible, and all religion from its country (which was limited in its success, and horrific in the success it achieved both in the 20th century and for those who bought into it, throughout eternity), so too, the secularization of our American institutions vacuums God, the Bible, and theistic religions from public space, suppressing or denying free expression. The resulting contraction of expression greatly complicates our ability to develop within ourselves and in our children a well-rounded biblical worldview manifest in a solid, Christian sub-culture that can salt the culture at large.  Our entrenched secularization is feeding a re-paganization of our people and our culture. Like the crude, Russian officer, the American people have largely been spiritually starved without realizing it. How? By pushing to the quiet corners biblical teaching and biblical spirituality. We have to start almost from scratch.

Amanda is right that most people want “a transcendent explanation of our world,” as she worded it. That is not enough, but it gives us hope that a deeper longing is there. The Russian officer clearly longed for God to exist because the longing was that God-shaped cry in his heart. This story that Richard Wurmbrand recorded in his book, now considered a Christian classic, Tortured for Christ, encourages us to share the Bible, personally, with others — with neighbors and whomever we can.  The hunger is there. We don’t have to have all the answers. We need to share the Word, simply beginning with The Gospels in the biblical literature, as Richard Wurmbrand did.

As I’ve written, Lifewise Academy is one way to bring the Bible, legally and respectfully, into public schools. I see that Focus on the Family has included Lifewise Academy in its Bibles to School movement. Good.

Next time, I will continue with some storytelling and commentary as a continued expansion of this series. We American Christians need to long for Christ, to long to share Christ, and to pray that God will stir up the deep longing He has nested in every heart. We American Christians need to listen to Christians from other countries and from previous centuries. Do you know that Christians in the first centuries (A.D.) were called atheists? Why? Well, we need to go back in time and see. What does this show us?

Romans 10:14-17 (NASB)

   How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed?

How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?

 But how are they to preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written:

“How beautiful are the feet of those who ^[a]bring good news of good things!”

 However, they did not all heed the ^[b]good news; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word ^[c]of Christ.

* Richard Wurmbrand. Tortured for Christ. First published in 1967 with many subsequent editions. Visit The Voice of the Martyrs and explore their website: http://www.persecution.com/founders.