Desire to escape from the “I”
“I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. (Gal. 2:20)
Dear brothers and sisters,
While in prison in Romania, I composed the following sermon in my mind:
In at least one respect I am like St. Anthony the Great. He never washed himself. I did not take a bath in years either. He slept in a tomb in order to remind himself constantly that this is the abode in which all earthly life inevitably ends. My cell is also like a tomb. It is thirty feet beneath the earth. The few planks which constitute my bed could as well become my coffin. I don’t fear death. I am in a tomb without having died.
What will be my future?
At this moment I am completely useless. My life consists of eating watery soups and getting endless beatings. The pain does not impress me much any more. Nothing ever happens in my life. Why should I wish to prolong my existence in this world? That I may be released? Of what use can a broken man be in freedom?
And if I recover some sermons again. Previously, when preaching on the subject of the blood of Christ, I had contemplated how to form the sentences more beautifully, instead of feeling the horror of Christ’s suffering and living the love which prompted Him to endure it. In one of the first Christian sermons I ever heard, the pastor yawned while preaching about Calvary. How unlike Dickens who, while reporting for a newspaper a speech in Parliament on the sufferings of the poor in Ireland, was so overcome that he was unable to take it down in shorthand.
A man speaks about the sufferings of a poor God and yawns. No wonder the audience yawned too. Pastors and flocks are fed up. They are also fed up with good sermons. They are too wise. Fools for Christ are needed, but I am not one of them. I don’t see any point in being free.
Neither di I wish to keep my “I” in eternity. Why should I care for life after death when I have none before death? My “I” has simply become uninteresting to me. I am as little concerned about its eternal destiny as about what will happen to it tomorrow. I wish to be an “I” no longer. I reject my “I”. My desire is to be a “he”. “When he shall appear, we shall be like him”. (1 John 3:2).
I once brought to Christ a Jew who was over ninety years old. He told me of a dream in which he saw himself in heaven and asked: “Where is Wurmbrand’s place?” But he received no answer. The question was probably still pending. At least, that was what I thought when he told me his dream. Now I am inclined to think that there will be no “Me” there. Why should I care about receiving a crown, which I will cast at His feet anyweay, over awned by His Majesty when I see Him? (Revelation 4:10). It is no best to finish completely with the “I” and become “He”?
Is this sheer madness, like so many other things happening to me, or am I one of the privileged few who have fulfilled the commandment of Christ to deny the “self”? But if I have denied the self, who is the one interested in knowing if this has really happened? Who then is happy that the denial of the “I” has occured? We are running around in a vicious circle. One must have a very strong “I” and be a giant in faith to reject his “I”, which is not only all that he is. Whoever burns the candle at both ends must have a great and glorious candle to burn. And what happens to the strong “I” who has rejected the “I”?
Jesus did not have the rich psychological vocabulary we have. He could not have spoken in Hebrew about the self, the ego, the id, the many complexes we worry about today.
I have always used Biblical language, speaking exactly as Scripture does about denying the self. In more precise modem language, I imagine that what Jesus meant us to leave was the ego.
In my dealings with people I have discovered that you don’t impress them by showing how smart you are.You win them rather by sitting at their feet and giving them a chance to teach you. Even an idiot can teach something. The usual attendance in churches is composed of men of lower IQ than that of a pastor. If a pastor does not know stupidity but only intelligence, he will not be fruitful.
We have to learn from another to raise his ego. The ego is the desire to be superior. It is the high opinion one holds about oneself and one’s achievments. I don’t believe as does Freud that the strongest desire of a man is the sexual urge, though it is enormous. The strongest desire is to uphold his ego, to appear valuable before his fellowmen.
Respect another’s ego, but renounce your own. I believe this is what was meant by Jesus’s commandment to deny the self.
There is a tension in us because the ego is torn apart in the effort to present a more beautiful image before the world. Tension ceases when we become indifferent to what people think about us. I have been a pastor much beloved by my family and my congregation, and much hated by anti-christian Jews because of my missionary work to win Jews for Christ. Now I am only despised and mocked by every man with whom I speak, because I speak only with wardens and interrogators. What do their opinions count? For Juliet it was enough to be loved by one single young man in Verona. Others might have passed near this girl of fourteen without even casting a glance at her. She was happy.
I don’t know how much I have achieved, but I wish to lose not the self - I have come to the conclusion that such an endeavor is chasing after the impossible - but self-assertion. One source says, “Clay is molded into a vessel, but the ultimate use of the vessel depends upon the part where nothing exists. Doors and windows are cut out of the wall of a house, but the ultimate use of the house depends upon the parts where nothing exists. ” wish to become such a useful nothing.
I am in the lowest social category, a man who will probably die in prison, sentenced for crime. But I am content to be so low. I have so little to renounce now. It seems ridiculous even to attempt to give up self-assertion. What have I to assert and before whom?
The Christian is Christ. Only this “He” lives eternally. He does not need the appendix of a little “I”.
When Michelangelo finished his “Pieta”, he exclaimed, “Only the marble separates me from my statue ”. I would say, “Only 120 pounds of flesh separate me from being fully He.”
”To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”
Sincerely in Christ,
Richard Wurmbrand
Dear brothers and sisters,
While in prison in Romania, I composed the following sermon in my mind:
In at least one respect I am like St. Anthony the Great. He never washed himself. I did not take a bath in years either. He slept in a tomb in order to remind himself constantly that this is the abode in which all earthly life inevitably ends. My cell is also like a tomb. It is thirty feet beneath the earth. The few planks which constitute my bed could as well become my coffin. I don’t fear death. I am in a tomb without having died.
What will be my future?
At this moment I am completely useless. My life consists of eating watery soups and getting endless beatings. The pain does not impress me much any more. Nothing ever happens in my life. Why should I wish to prolong my existence in this world? That I may be released? Of what use can a broken man be in freedom?
And if I recover some sermons again. Previously, when preaching on the subject of the blood of Christ, I had contemplated how to form the sentences more beautifully, instead of feeling the horror of Christ’s suffering and living the love which prompted Him to endure it. In one of the first Christian sermons I ever heard, the pastor yawned while preaching about Calvary. How unlike Dickens who, while reporting for a newspaper a speech in Parliament on the sufferings of the poor in Ireland, was so overcome that he was unable to take it down in shorthand.
A man speaks about the sufferings of a poor God and yawns. No wonder the audience yawned too. Pastors and flocks are fed up. They are also fed up with good sermons. They are too wise. Fools for Christ are needed, but I am not one of them. I don’t see any point in being free.
Neither di I wish to keep my “I” in eternity. Why should I care for life after death when I have none before death? My “I” has simply become uninteresting to me. I am as little concerned about its eternal destiny as about what will happen to it tomorrow. I wish to be an “I” no longer. I reject my “I”. My desire is to be a “he”. “When he shall appear, we shall be like him”. (1 John 3:2).
I once brought to Christ a Jew who was over ninety years old. He told me of a dream in which he saw himself in heaven and asked: “Where is Wurmbrand’s place?” But he received no answer. The question was probably still pending. At least, that was what I thought when he told me his dream. Now I am inclined to think that there will be no “Me” there. Why should I care about receiving a crown, which I will cast at His feet anyweay, over awned by His Majesty when I see Him? (Revelation 4:10). It is no best to finish completely with the “I” and become “He”?
Is this sheer madness, like so many other things happening to me, or am I one of the privileged few who have fulfilled the commandment of Christ to deny the “self”? But if I have denied the self, who is the one interested in knowing if this has really happened? Who then is happy that the denial of the “I” has occured? We are running around in a vicious circle. One must have a very strong “I” and be a giant in faith to reject his “I”, which is not only all that he is. Whoever burns the candle at both ends must have a great and glorious candle to burn. And what happens to the strong “I” who has rejected the “I”?
Jesus did not have the rich psychological vocabulary we have. He could not have spoken in Hebrew about the self, the ego, the id, the many complexes we worry about today.
I have always used Biblical language, speaking exactly as Scripture does about denying the self. In more precise modem language, I imagine that what Jesus meant us to leave was the ego.
In my dealings with people I have discovered that you don’t impress them by showing how smart you are.You win them rather by sitting at their feet and giving them a chance to teach you. Even an idiot can teach something. The usual attendance in churches is composed of men of lower IQ than that of a pastor. If a pastor does not know stupidity but only intelligence, he will not be fruitful.
We have to learn from another to raise his ego. The ego is the desire to be superior. It is the high opinion one holds about oneself and one’s achievments. I don’t believe as does Freud that the strongest desire of a man is the sexual urge, though it is enormous. The strongest desire is to uphold his ego, to appear valuable before his fellowmen.
Respect another’s ego, but renounce your own. I believe this is what was meant by Jesus’s commandment to deny the self.
There is a tension in us because the ego is torn apart in the effort to present a more beautiful image before the world. Tension ceases when we become indifferent to what people think about us. I have been a pastor much beloved by my family and my congregation, and much hated by anti-christian Jews because of my missionary work to win Jews for Christ. Now I am only despised and mocked by every man with whom I speak, because I speak only with wardens and interrogators. What do their opinions count? For Juliet it was enough to be loved by one single young man in Verona. Others might have passed near this girl of fourteen without even casting a glance at her. She was happy.
I don’t know how much I have achieved, but I wish to lose not the self - I have come to the conclusion that such an endeavor is chasing after the impossible - but self-assertion. One source says, “Clay is molded into a vessel, but the ultimate use of the vessel depends upon the part where nothing exists. Doors and windows are cut out of the wall of a house, but the ultimate use of the house depends upon the parts where nothing exists. ” wish to become such a useful nothing.
I am in the lowest social category, a man who will probably die in prison, sentenced for crime. But I am content to be so low. I have so little to renounce now. It seems ridiculous even to attempt to give up self-assertion. What have I to assert and before whom?
The Christian is Christ. Only this “He” lives eternally. He does not need the appendix of a little “I”.
When Michelangelo finished his “Pieta”, he exclaimed, “Only the marble separates me from my statue ”. I would say, “Only 120 pounds of flesh separate me from being fully He.”
”To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”
Sincerely in Christ,
Richard Wurmbrand
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