I have written fairly often about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the past (and plan to continue doing so), as both his life and his writings stand out to me as enormously different, brilliant and relevant compared to that of almost any other Christian writer in the modern age. While most recognized for books such as The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, many also know that Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Nazis in 1943, imprisoned, and finally hanged on April 9th, 1945 mere days before his concentration camp was liberated by the Allies at the close of WWII. I highly commend Eric Metaxas’ new biography for those who likewise cannot stratch the Bonhoeffer itch enough.
Another of Bonhoeffer’s works is entitled Letters and Papers from Prison, the title of which is entirely self-explanatory in terms of both its origin and contents. Among these collected gems is a little-known piece called “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell,” which was both written and delivered by Bonhoeffer while awaiting his fate. Perhaps it will increase the reader’s sense of poignancy while working through this short piece if I also mention that Bonhoeffer was, during his imprisonment, engaged to be married to his beloved Maria von Wedemeyer. Theirs was to be a wedding that would never take place. Yet “skipping the shadow on the way to the Reality” (as John Piper puts it with reference to Bonhoeffer), this martyr serves us by bearing witness to the foundations of human marriage, and by pointing us to the source and goal of all human love–namely, Jesus Christ. I hope you will read it here.
