I serve Iranian Lutherans in two churches in Hamburg, one of which is Zion Lutheran (SELK). In the early 1940s, one of its parishioners was a lady named Margarethe Guradze. She was Jewish by birth and later converted to Lutheran Christianity. For years, the congregation had been able to protect Margarethe from the Nazi authorities. However, in the wee hours of July 15, 1942, the Gestapo knocked on the door of her apartment and hauled her off to a temporary detention center. Zion’s pastor, Rev. Erwin Horwitz, also of Jewish descent, was soon notified of her arrest. He himself had been locked up years earlier because of his Jewish heritage. Amazingly, every Sunday morning the Nazis allowed him to attend to his pastoral duties at Zion, but every Sunday evening they escorted him back to the work camp. Jesus tells us in John 10: ‘I am the Door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved.’ And then: ‘He who enters by the Door is the shepherd’—we might also say undershepherd—of the sheep.’ Pastor Horwitz was an excellent undershepherd. Even though he knew he would be walking into the lion’s den, he *had* to visit Margarethe in the detention center because she would soon be forced to set out on a journey from which she would most likely never return. And so, surrounded by Jews, Christians, and all sorts of other “enemies of the state” fearing for their lives, Pastor Horwitz gave Margarethe the most important nourishment possible for her journey: the Lord’s true body and blood—for the forgiveness of her sins, life, and salvation. Soon afterward, Margarethe was transported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where she would be imprisoned for two years. On May 15, 1944, she would then be herded into a railway car headed for Auschwitz. Margarethe would never return. *** How awesome to consider that whenever we take Holy Communion with our Iranian friends at Zion Hamburg, we are invisibly joined by all the company of heaven—including Margarethe and Pastor Horwitz.
tiewsfamily.org 