The Professor Who Sailed Back Into the Dark

In June 1939, Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood on the deck of a ship bound for New York, watching the German coastline disappear. Friends had arranged a safe teaching position at Union Theological Seminary — a way out of Hitler's tightening grip. America offered security, a prestigious career, and distance from the gathering horror.

He lasted twenty-six days.

Writing to Reinhold Niebuhr, Bonhoeffer confessed: "I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people."

He boarded the last scheduled steamer back to Germany — back into the darkness.

This is what Matthew describes when Jesus, hearing of John's arrest, does not retreat to safety but walks straight into Galilee — the region Isaiah called "the land of the shadow of death." Where danger was thickening, Jesus moved toward it, not away. And there, in that dark province, He called ordinary fishermen to drop their nets and follow Him into the same costly direction.

Bonhoeffer dropped his nets — the lecture halls, the safety, the career — because he understood what Peter and Andrew grasped on that Galilean shore: when the Lord calls you into the darkness, it is because He intends to be the Light there. And He asks you to carry it with Him.