A tale of thin ice
Years ago, when I was a new young trainee Baptist Minister, I was told the tale of Dirk Willems, an Anabaptist believer in Holland in the Sixteenth Century. I shall be telling his story today. Like many others in the Anabaptist tradition, the teaching he received in his little church centred not only on the birth and death of Jesus…but on his life. Anabaptist preachers have always placed a strong emphasis on the necessity of imitation for the Christian disciple- taking on the likeness of the one whom they follow.
In 1569, Dirk was arrested for his part in an illegal gathering for worship, and imprisoned in a local moated castle. As the months wore by, and he grew thinner, he made his daring escape. Knotting together his bed linen, he lowered himself down onto the frozen moat and began to run across it. A prison warder heard him, and gave chase. Dirk’s prison rations meant that he was the lighter of the two, and made it across the ice without incident. His heavier pursuer was not so fortunate, and just as Dirk reached the far bank the ice gave way with a mighty crack!
Now comes the moment which has made me remember the story for the last 25 years. So schooled was Dirk in the ways of Christ that his instinct on hearing the sound was not to run, but to help a fellow human being in need. He turned around and rescued the terrified warder from the freezing waters.who promptly arrested him. Willems was imprisoned again and subsequently executed. His moment of instinctive kindness has stood for almost five centuries as a monument to the power of discipleship learning. Think of Dirk if you are teaching a children’s or young people’s group – you are shaping minds and hearts as you do so…
Image: mswichita.net