Obituary for Richard Wurmbrand

[Note: The following is an obituary written for Reverend Richard Wurmbrand.  The poem which he composed while imprisoned (given below) may be disturbing the first time you read it.  However, read it through, ponder its words, and consider the circumstances in which it was written.  I believe it shows a level of love that I had never fathomed before.  I pray that God would create in me the same love for Him and His son, Jesus Christ.]

REVEREND RICHARD WURMBRAND
1909-2001

Rev. Wurmbrand spent 14 years in Romanian communist prisons, of which nearly three years in a solitary cell. His life experience was described in several worldwide bestsellers (see biography and funeral announcement below.) From his book In God's Underground comes this description, in a poem, of what he considered to be one of his most important spiritual experiences:
"Alone in the cell, now, I felt Satan’s presence. It was dark and cold, and he was mocking me. The Bible speaks of places "where satyrs dance," and this had become such a place. I heard his voice day and night, "Where's Jesus? Your Savior can't save you You've been tricked, and you've tricked others. He isn't the Messiah?you followed the wrong man" I cried aloud, "Then who is the true Messiah who will come?" The answer was plain, but too blasphemous to repeat. I had written books and articles proving Christ was the Messiah, but now I could not think of one argument. The devils who made Nils Hauge, the great Norwegian evangelist, waver in his faith while in jail, who made even John the Baptist doubt in his dungeon, raged against me. I was weaponless. My joy and serenity were gone. I had felt Christ so close to me before, easing my bitterness, lightening the darkness, but now I cried, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" and I felt utterly forsaken.

"During those black, horrible days, I slowly composed a long poem which may not be easily accepted by those who have not known any similar physical and spiritual state. It was my salvation. By word, rhythm and incantation, I was able to defeat Satan. Here is an unrhymed and unmetrical version which gives the exact meaning of the Rumanian:

From childhood I frequented temples and churches. In them God was glorified. Different priests sang and tensed with zeal. They claimed it right to love You. But as I grew, I saw such deep sorrow in the world of this God that I said to myself, "He has a heart of stone. Otherwise He would ease the difficulties of the way for us." Sick children struggle with fever in hospital: sad parents pray for them. Heaven is deaf. The ones we love go to the valley of death, even when our prayers are long. Innocent men are burned alive in furnaces. And heaven is silent. It lets things be. Can God wonder, if, in undertones, even the believers begin to doubt? Hungry, tortured, persecuted in their own land, they have no answers to these questions. The Almighty is disgraced by the horrors that befall us.

How can I love the creator of microbes and of tigers that tear men? How can I love Him who tortures all his servants because one ate from a tree? Sadder than Job, I have neither wife, child nor comforters, and in this prison there is neither sun nor air and the regime is hard to endure.

From my bed of planks they will make my coffin. Stretched upon it, I try to find why my thoughts run to You, why my writings all turn towards You? Why is this passionate love in my soul, why does my song go only to You? I know I am rejected; soon I will putrefy in a tomb.

The bride of the Song of Songs did not love when she asked if You are "rightly loved." Love is its own justification. Love is not for the wise. Through a thousand ordeals she will not cease to love. Though fire burns and the waves drown her, she will kiss the hand that hurts. If she finds no answer to her questions she is confident and waits. One day the sun will shine in hidden places and all will be made plain.

Forgiveness of many sins only increased Magdalene's burning love. But she gave perfume and shed tears before You said Your forgiving word. And had You not said it, still she would have sat and wept for the love she has towards You, even being in sin. She loved You before Your blood was shed. She loved You before You forgave. Neither do I ask if it is right to give You love. I do not love in hope of salvation. I would love You in everlasting misfortune. I would love You even in consuming fire. If You had refused to descend to men, You would have been my distant dream. If You had refused to sow Your word, I would love You without hearing it. If You had hesitated and fled from the Crucifixion, and I were not saved, still I would love You. And even if I found sin in You, I would cover it with my love.

Now I will dare to say mad words, so that all may know how much I love. Now I will touch untouched strings and magnify You with a new music. If the prophets had predicted another, I would leave them, not You. Let them produce a thousand proofs, I will keep my love for You. If I divined that You were a deceiver, I would pray for You weeping and, though I could not follow You in falsehood, it would not lessen my love. For Saul, Samuel passed a life in weeping and severe fasting. So my love would resist even if I knew You lost. If You, not Satan, had risen wrongly in revolt against Heaven and lost the loveliness of wings and fallen like an archangel from high, hopeless, I would hope that the Father would forgive You and that one day You would walk with Him again in the gold streets of Heaven.

If You were a myth, I would leave reality and live with You in a dream. If they proved You did not exist, You would receive life from my love. My love is mad, without motive, as Your love is, too. Lord Jesus, find some happiness here. For more I cannot give you.

When I had completed this poem, I no longer felt the nearness of Satan. He had gone. In the silence I felt the kiss of Christ, and everyone is silent when he is kissed. Quiet and joy returned."

BIOGRAPHY
Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, 91, author of 18 worldwide Christian bestsellers, translated in over 70 languages, describing his life and 14 years of communist imprisonment, was born the youngest of four boys, in a Jewish family in Bucharest, Romania. Between 1913-1919 the family lived in Istanbul, Turkey. Thefather, a dentist died from the flu epidemic in 1919. The poor widow and the four boys returned to Romania. Richard, very gifted intellectually andfluent in 9 languages, had a stormy youth, was active in leftist politics and working as a stockbroker when he married Sabina in 1936. The same year, the Jewish couple met during a vacation in the Romanian mountains, Mr. Wolfkes, a German carpenter who placed a Bible into their hands. He urged these two young, educated, Jewish intellectuals to just take the time and read at least one of the Gospels, in essence a short biography of the most famous personality of the Jewish people, Jesus Christ. Sabina and Richard, meeting also other Jewish-Christians, converted and were baptized. They joined the church of the Anglican Mission to the Jews in Bucharest, Romania. Eventually after studying, Richard, a charismatic speaker, was first ordained as an Anglican and then, following WW II, re-ordained as a Lutheran minister. Their only son, Michael was born in 1939.Due to Romania's declaration of war against England and the other Western Powers, at the beginning of WWII, the British Anglican minister had to leave Romania. Rev. Richard Wurmbrand and his wife Sabine, without thought to family or possessions, continued unafraid and without respite an intense illegal missionary Christian work. They smuggled numerous Jewish children out of ghettos, preached daily in many bomb shelters and ended up arrested many times for underground Christian activities during a state of war. At least one time they were a few hours away from being sentenced to be shot by a military Romanian tribunal, which had no patience or understanding for two Jews turned Christian and their other Jewish-Christian followers conducting such underground activities while Romania was at war. The Wurmbrands, loved and respected by many Romanian Orthodox Christian personalities though, escaped only through the intervention of a Mr. Lungulescu, chief editor of Romania's main newspaper, Universul (The Universe.) Sabine's parents, two sisters and a brother perished in Nazi massacres. Also killed by Romanian Nazi Legionnaires was Isaac Feinstein, an effective Jewish Christian missionary to the Jews in Romania, who was the main influence in the conversion of the Wurmbrands. Their lives during that period was described in Wurmbrand’s book, Christ on the Jewish Road.In the short period between the end of WWII and the transformation of Romania into a communist state (1945-1947) Rev. Wurmbrand printed and organized the undergrounddistribution of one million Russian Gospels to the Russian troops that occupied Romania. He pastored a church of 1,000, mostly made of Jewish converts. In February 1948 Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, though under Swedish diplomatic protection, was kidnapped from the street by the Communist government and disappeared in the Communist prison system. In preparation for a show trial he was kept under a secret name for nearly 3 years in a solitary cell, underwent tortures and was sentenced to 25 years of prison as an enemy of the communist state. The show trial was never held as he resisted all tortures. He spent 14 years in Communist prisons in two periods, 1948-1956 and 1959-1964. His wife, Sabina was also in a slave-labor camp from 1950-1953.He succeeded to convert to the Christian faith some secret police officers. In 1956 one of them, Mr. Sandu Franco obtained surreptitiously his release from prison by making a distracted head of the state security place his signature on arelease approval. In 1964 Norwegian Lutheran- and British Hebrew-Christians paid $10,000 to ransom him and his family from Communist Romania. Two of his brothers and Iser Harel, a formerhead of the Israeli secret services were instrumental in this transaction. His books Tortured for Christ and In God’s Underground describe some of the above in detail.The events that gave him worldwide recognition in the Western World have not been gathered before in any book and therefore are narrated here.They show themarvelous combination he was endowed with, of faith, courage and astuteness. The Wurmbrands arriving in December 1965 in Oslo, Norway and not understanding Norwegian, visited their first Sunday, the American Lutheran Church. Impressed by the freedom of worship they cried uncontrollably during the entire service.Rev. Myrus Knutson, the minister of the church, opened in deep compassion his home to the refugee family while checking through the US embassy government connections on the veracity of this refugee’s strange accounts of suffering.

"Fully reliable" was the answer received, so Rev. Wurmbrand was invited to speak at the largest NATO base chapel meeting in Oslo. The meeting being opened for questions, Colonel-Chaplain Cassius Sturdy asked Pastor Wurmbrand why the West should not try and just coexist with communism? Wurmbrand, always dramatic in his behavior, quickly stepped off the podium, snatched the colonel’s wallet from his pocket and replied,- I took your money, your money is in my pocket. Let’s coexist!- He replied further that of course communism wants to coexist once it had occupied half the globe. There might be no cure for cancer or a solution to communism, yet an accommodation with cancer and likewise with communism, is not possible. Colonel Sturdy stood up on the spot and said, Gentlemen, let’s send this man to America to snatch the wallets from all leftists and open their eyes.- Indeed, a collection was taken immediately and an itinerary organized within a month with speaking engagements for Rev. Wurmbrand mostly in the Eastern United States.Once arrivedin New York, most meetings were small military chapel gatherings and Rev. Wurmbrand scheduled immediately his return for lack of any success. Before his final departure, he was invited to Philadelphia to visit the only US friend he knew, a Jewish-Christian minister. This minister discouraged him from trying to stay in the United States as he was too old and too feeble to pastor a church, and, -you will not be able to raise a salary- were his final words. He asked the minister to show him a little bit of downtown Philadelphia. It so happened that the biggest anti-Vietnam war rally was that day underway at which a Presbyterian minister was the main pro-left speaker. Stopping to listen out of curiosity, Rev. Wurmbrand , 6’ 3- went straight for the microphone, shouting, you know nothing of communism, I am a doctor in communism. You should be on the side of communism’s victims instead of defending their torturers.- How could you be a doctor in communism?- came the sarcastic reply. Here are my credentials,- answered Wurmbrand, taking off his shirt to show deep torture scars on his torso. The police took Wurmbrand away asking him to put back his shirt, yet it was enough for newsmen to take dramatic photographs and ask for interviews. In nearly all major US newspapers, on first page, next-day, there were pictures of the minister who took off his shirt at this rally and requests for interviews and speaking engagements poured in.Rev. Wurmbrand had to postpone his return and prolong by 1 ½ month his stay in the States. Another 3-month speaking return-tour followed shortly. His testimony inMay 1966 before the U. S. Senate’s Internal Security Subcommittee became the US Government’s Printing Office most sold publication in the three subsequent years. In November 1966 , Richard, Sabina and Michael, having moved to the Sates, started Christian Missions to the Communist World.In 1990 the mission was namedVoice of the Martyrs, Inc. (based in Bartlesville, Ok., present General Director, Tom White who spent 1 ½ years in Cuban communist prisons) a world-wide organization having as its aim the help of Christians persecuted by communist regimes, evangelizing leftist. An important thrust is undertaken presently, after the fall of communism in Russia, into Moslem countries. The mission has branches in over 35 countries in the Free World. Rev. Wurmbrand traveled worldwide and conducted many influential televised interviews. For example, he left Madalyn O'Hair, the outspoken atheist, literally speechless, when asking her on live television if she knew an address of any atheist charitable institution, while there are so manycharities of different religious persuasion. The Voice of the Martyrs, Inc.activities and Rev. Wurmbrand speaking in many countries effectively drew the attention of the world to the plight of their fellow forgotten Christian brethren. Wurmbrand’s message at all times: Hate the evil systems, but love the persecutors and try to convert them to Christianity.- Profound faith, sharp thinking and quick wit combined to give him a warm personality. His principle, help anyone and give to anyone who arrived to ask from you, even you can help or give only a little.- Christian leaders around the world wrote books and testimonials about him andhave called him a living martyr and the Iron Curtain Paul.- A few of his sermons appeared in his books Sermons in Solitary Confinement- or Reaching Toward the Heights.- Continuing to travel and speak past his 85th birthday, Rev Wurmbrand was confined to his bed, for the last five years, due to strokes and severely advancing leg neuropathy contracted during his 3 years of solitary confinement which he spent mostly standing and on a starvation diet. He died in Torrance, Ca. on 2/17/01, of respiratory failure. His wife Sabina died 8/11/00.

He is survived by their son, Michael.