Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?

• Matthew 5:47

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings.

• Romans 16:16

“ ‘I see, Fraulein, that you are carrying chocolate with you? What is your reason?’
“ ‘I am taking it for the minister’s children in East Berlin. Don’t you bring chocolate with you when you visit a family with children?’
“ ‘No, I take flowers with me,’ he said seriously.
“ ‘Flowers are nice for parents, but children prefer chocolate. Besides, I often preach about chocolate.’
“ ‘What crazy people we have here today,” the officer [at Checkpoint Charlie] said. ‘You carry books by a man who talks like a machine gun and then tell me you preach about chocolate. Tell me, what kind of sermon do you get from a chocolate bar, old woman?’
“ ‘Several years ago,’ I answered, ‘I spoke to a group of Germans who prided themselves as intellectuals. They would not receive me because they felt that they were more profound in their theology than I. So, my last time with them I brought them all some Dutch chocolate. Since chocolate was very rare after the war, they eagerly accepted my gift. Later, when I stood to speak to them, I told them, “No one has said anything to me about the chocolate.”
“ ‘They disagreed, saying that they had all thanked me for it.
“ ‘ “I did not mean that,” I said. “I mean no one questioned me about it. No one asked whether it had been manufactured in Holland or Germany, what quantities it contained of cocoa, sugar, milk, or vitamins. Instead of analyzing it, you just ate it.” ’
“ ‘Then I picked up my Bible and said, “It is the same with this Book. If you try to analyze it as a book of science or even a book of theology, you cannot be nourished by it. Like chocolate, it is to be eaten and enjoyed, not picked apart bit by bit.” ’
“I stopped talking and noticed, once again, that the officer and the typist were deeply interested in what I was saying. Then the officer straightened up, cleared his throat, and said to the typist, ‘Please type Fraulein ten Boom’s protocol and we will let her pass.’ With that he stood and left the room, never looking back.
“I sat quietly while the typist finished typing her report. Moments later the officer was back. He pulled the paper from the typewriter and read aloud. ‘When in prison Corrie ten Boom received from God the commission to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ over the whole world. Her church has taught her to bring chocolate when she visits families with children.’

• Corrie ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord

The officer took the report to his supervisor and by a miracle, her entrance into East Germany was approved.  But before the quote the officer was giving every excuse imaginable that she had wasted her time in trying to go see a pastor in East Berlin who gave her an invitation.  He noticed a book by Billy Graham, and he called him, “the machine gun of God.”  It was not until the officer saw the chocolates that Tante Corrie found any weakness in his demeanor.

Before the wall came down, and this was before that time, when you drove to West Berlin, you had to get off the autobahn at Checkpoint Charlie.  If you continued on, you were considered a spy and it would be a difficult day for you before the American authorities could convince the East German authorities that you simply were daydreaming and missed the exit.  But as in this case, Checkpoint Charlie was the place to get into and out of East Berlin.  I had a friend who escaped East Berlin in the trunk of a car, inside a steamer trunk.  Luckily they opened the trunk to find a steamer trunk, and the officer thought it was simply their luggage.

I also had a friend of a friend absent-mindedly drive past Checkpoint Charlie.  She was “captured” two exits later and taken into interrogation.  They did a total body cavity search of her, at least, a couple of times before the American authorities arrived to explain she was not “right in the head.”  She was rather intelligent, but she was simply having a “blonde moment,” and even then, the East Germans detained her a few more hours for the “entertainment,” naked, frightened, and all alone.

But in having this knowledge about Checkpoint Charlie, just not personal experience, what happened with Corrie ten Boom was a miracle.  What the officer read was what the typist had gotten out of the conversation between the officer and Tante Corrie.  [Note: We never know who is listening or how the Holy Spirit is working.] And even their supervisor approved it as written.

We constantly underestimate the power of God, and the Dutch chocolate is pretty powerful too.

Lord, strengthen me.  In Europe, when you visit someone’s home, you never arrive empty handed, but Tante Corrie had the right thing and the right message to accompany it.  Lord, prepare us for such contingencies.  Keep us in Your word.  Keep us prayerful to seek Your guidance in everything.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.