By Karl Steinbauer
Karl Steinbauer (1906-1988) preached a very powerful sermon on Matthew 2:13-23 as parish administrator on 8 January 1939 in Senden/Iller. In it he refers the Bethlehemite infanticide to the National Socialist educational dictatorship. One week later, on 15 January 1939, Steinbauer’s parsonage in Senden was attacked between 3 and 4 a.m. by 15 drunken SA men who broke the windows on the street side and broke into the house. Steinbauer was imprisoned in the Neu-Ulm district court prison before being taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 28 March 1939. He remained imprisoned there until shortly before Christmas 1939.
„Jesus fleeing to Egypt.“ Under this title one could write a book about the whole history of the Church from its first beginnings to the present day, and running alongside it, also throughout history, the Bethlehemite infanticide.
We don’t want to think that the story we have just read happened 2000 years ago and lies in the back of our minds and is basically no longer of any concern to us and has only a memorial value and historical interest. Well, Herod is not always the same. His figure and name change. But the persecution of the child Jesus always remains, even if the way of persecution is not always the same. As can be read in our text, it alternates between hypocritical, even mendacious piety and religiosity of all kinds, and then again between open, naked, cruel brutality. Herod does not shy away from any means to get hold of the child. But he does not succeed. He cannot get hold of the Child, not with feigned piety and not with cruel murders and persecutions.
One can only be shocked when we read here how Herod calls the scribes together to search the word of God – „for what“? – For persecution! Bible study for the persecution of the child Jesus! One can shudder! How many a one sits eagerly over the Bible again today and diligently studies it! For what purpose? To persecute the message of the Child Jesus! So that he can then blaspheme in meetings about God’s Word, about His pious and chosen ones. What unholy Bible study!
But this remains clear in our story: Herod cannot get hold of the Child by any means, not with cunning and not with violence. Herod will never get to the Child in the manger, not even with a large contingent of henchmen, no matter how much cunning, religious camouflage and who knows what else he may deploy.
But how fine and simple it is said of the wise men – just as it was said of the shepherds: „… and they went into the house, and found the young child, and fell down, and worshipped, and … and„. How this comes so happily one after the other. And everything opens up as if by itself. They find their way to him without difficulty. God himself has the guidance and direction in his hand, for they want to worship in spirit and in truth. But the „also- worshippers“ cannot find the child in the manger, not by any trick, and cannot open the door to the stable by any force.
But Herod leaves no stone unturned to get hold of this child, to get hold of him. So it started right at his birth. Then Herod soon died. When the Lord appeared in public about 30 years later, this attempt continued. At that time, Herod’s son was king, who had John the Baptist beheaded, and whom the Lord Jesus called the Fox. The agents of the Pharisees and Herod worked hand in hand there, and often stretched out their hands after him: „But his hour was not yet come.“ There in Nazareth, for example, the right opportunity already seemed to have come: „Now seize him, then we have him!“ So they thought, and already led him out of the city, that they cast him down from the rock like a blasphemer. „But he went away in the midst of them.“ (Luke 4:30). They lay in wait for him, that is, they spied on him and had him spied on when he was preaching, they set traps for him and the spies denounced him. – What a sad thing that is, when someone comes into the church, as it seems, „also to worship“, and then, when he thinks he has caught this or that captious word, he runs to denounce it. This is how it was done to the Lord Jesus.
Later Judas betrayed him for wages and played him into the hands of the murderers. They rejoiced that they finally had him in their power and could destroy him. But not with lies and deceit, not with lying friendliness – „Judas, do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? Nor can he be caught with „saliva, blows, ropes and bands“, hostage-taking, crowning with thorns and death on the cross. On the third day it is said: „He is risen, he is risen indeed!
But the persecution does not stop – and neither does the Bethlehemite infanticide! Only now they fall upon his apostles and disciples. Again, the call is heard from the mouths of the church leaders of the scribes and Pharisees: „Go and search diligently for the little child…“. And they searched for them as if with sniffer dogs. Saul from Tarsus was also among the persecutors, so far can blindness go: Saul in Herod’s service! The Jews again thought that, as Herod had done in Bethlehem with the extermination of the disciples, they should also be able to exterminate the name of Jesus of Nazareth. But who would want to murder the Risen One? When Stephen stood in his death trial before those who wanted to exterminate Christ, his face was like that of an angel, and he saw heaven open and Him sitting at the right hand of God in power! No, they cannot have Him, not even through the stoning of His witnesses.
After the stoning of Stephen, however, the angel’s voice could also be heard again: „Arise, and take the young child and his mother unto thee, and flee into Egypt.“ And many of Jesus‘ disciples fled from Jerusalem in those days, to Samaria, to Cyprus, to Damascus, etc., until finally, around the year 70, the last remnants of the Christian community left shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.
Through these scattered and dispersed Christian clusters, and especially through the missionary work of the apostle Paul, Christian communities were quickly formed here and there throughout the Roman Empire. They too had no peace. Soon the words of Herod could be heard again from the mouths of the Roman emperors: „Go and search diligently for the little child…“. And the consequence was that a bloody persecution of the Child of Bethlehem repeatedly spread over the whole Roman Empire, which was to suffocate the often still weak, young Christian communities in blood. Hundreds and thousands of Christians were driven to their deaths, thrown to the wild animals in the circus or killed in other cruel ways. The Roman Caesars, too, thought that in this way they could fatally strike this Christ and thereby exterminate him as well. But even the greatest cruelty cannot seize him who sits at the right hand of God! With songs of praise and thanksgiving on their lips, the Christians proclaimed their living, risen Lord Tau in the circus in Rome and elsewhere, as once the first blood witness Stephanus did before the High Council and the people in Jerusalem, and among them also Saul from Tar sus.
But again came the call of the angel to the Christians: „Arise and take the little child and his mother to you and flee …“ The congregation and the church fled again with their infant Jesus into silence in the cellars and catacombs and worshipped him there and praised and extolled their exalted Lord, who lives and reigns and comes again to set up his glorious kingdom. In this they remained confident: „No persecution, no death can strike our exalted Lord!
After that came a very dangerous time. Even with the cruelest persecutions, the Roman emperors could not get Christ under their control. But then one day they said: „In this sign you will be victorious“. And since those days of the Emperor Constantine, war flags and wars have even been linked with the Cross of Christ in an unpleasant way. Since that time not a few emperors and kings, princes, etc., have pursued their often quite wicked policy with the Lord Christ and His Cross. This seizure and use of Christianity for politics has caused untold damage to the Church throughout its history. The statesmen and the powerful of the world willingly took Christianity into their custody, but they now also disposed of it in their own way as they saw fit. It is no wonder that the Lord Christ no longer had anything to do with such Christianity, indeed that since that time the real, true Christ has not infrequently been persecuted „in the name of Christ“ in such secularised Christianity.
This is perhaps followed by the saddest period of persecution of the Child Jesus. The „representatives of Jesus Christ on earth“ on the chair of Peter take over from the Roman emperors. Again, from the mouth of this or that prince of the church, as once from the mouth of the scribes and Pharisees, the Herodian cry is heard: „Go and search diligently for the infant …“and a terrible, bloody hunt began for the small, pre-reform circles in the old church, for the Waldensians and Albigensians, who rightly did not want to believe that the infant could be taken out of the manger in the stable of Bethlehem and be placed in magnificent palaces and laid in golden cradles. And the se persecutions were even called crusades by the church superiors. Christ fled from such church leaders and stopped here and there with poor, small groups seeking the true Christ and took shelter. But it was precisely there that „His representatives“ tracked him down and had him persecuted. But even they could not get hold of him, and the true Church of Jesus Christ did not perish, even if the official Church no longer sheltered him.
After a hard and difficult search, God let a monk in Germany find his way back to the manger in the stable in Bethlehem, and he rejoiced: „Praised be You, Jesus Christ, that You were born a man…“. And then people listened throughout Germany and far beyond its borders, and many a one again found his way to the stable in Bethlehem through the loud proclamation of Dr. Martin Luther and worshipped joyfully and gratefully.
But Herod was not long in coming. And again he began his bloody search for the child, and the angel was heard again: „Arise and take the child and his mother to you and flee …“. And whole trains of emigrants had to set out and came by the thousands and thousands, especially from Austria and France, and many, many fell victim to this new, cruel Bethlehemite infanticide.
But even within the Reformation Church, the infant of Bethlehem has not been spared persecution. Here, too, many a prince has made politics out of it, and it has often been falsified later on, remodeled and reconfigured according to the alleged, scientific, unacceptable findings, and made socially acceptable. A completely new kind of persecution began, especially in the Protestant Church. The ratio, the reason of man, sat on the high throne everywhere and was also on the desks of the universities and in the pulpits of the church. With reason he was to be measured, the some Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, and was to be forced out of his manger into the little brain-box of the rational Christians. This is probably the greatest fault of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Lord Christ had to flee from most lecture halls of the universities and even from most pulpits of the churches and withdrew, especially to the so-called silent ones in the country. There was still a lot of talk about him in the mer, but this was the dead Christ of thought and reason, the true Bethlehem Christ was rarely preached louder and purer. There was also an evil murder going through the land, a bloodless Bethlehemite infanticide, but no less cruel for that, which claimed many, many victims.
And the most painful thing was that it was run by the church itself and it did not even know what it was doing. Many, many people died because they received stones instead of the bread of life. The dying that began at that time through the faith of reason has not stopped at until our day and is still running through our people like a judgement. It is time for us, the Church of the Reformation, to seriously reflect on this, to repent, to turn around, to return to the manger in Bethlehem. Or do we not want to see what is happening in the East, in Russia? The kind of judgement that has been unleashed and is still being unleashed on the Church there is no coincidence. The Church of Russia by Tsar’s grace with its popes, i.e. priests, had little or nothing to do with the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church was more or less only seen and used as a means to an end according to its profitability for the state and politics. The proclamation was not made in spirit and in truth. The church was not the shelter and refuge for the weary and burdened, the oppressed and the exhausted. It was disastrously linked to despotic tsarism and a docile instrument of the state and politics, in a word a rotten, rotten state church, ripe for the sinister judgement that took place in it and at the same time on the state that believed it could abuse the Church of Jesus Christ for its own purposes.
Oh, that we would see and understand this judgment! The stupid salt is thrown into the streets and trampled underfoot. It is time for the judgment to begin at the house of God! For all the evil things that we observe here and there in the church question do not come from nowhere. A false Christ was widely preached, the socially acceptable Christ, the Christ that was agreeable to natural science, the Christ of reason and mere thought, the Christ that was linked to politics. They wanted to adapt Christ to everything. At first, at least, they didn’t want to dismiss him completely; he was part of good manners. But he did not allow himself to be adapted and remodeled. He withdrew. Where people do not want him as he is, in the form of a servant, the powerless child of Bethlehem, whose kingdom is not of this world, he stays outside. But the world does not want the true Christ, who declares war on all untruth and lies, on all sin: „I have come to bear witness to the truth. But it is precisely this Christ, the seemingly powerless one, as he stands before Pilate, who stands in the authority of God. And this Christ cannot be eradicated. This Christ, who does not depart from the testimony of truth that the Father has given him, can indeed be crucified, but he rises again on the third day. All self-made, paper sham Christs die and perish and their worshippers with them! That could teach us people of today soot land. But the true Christ lives, and no persecution, no death can kill him, that can, whoever wants to see, persecute him throughout the whole history of the Church, again in the present also in Russia.
Now everyone is asking themselves, „Which Christ am I harbouring?“ Does the true Bethlehem Christ, persecuted from Herod onwards, have a shelter in your heart, or did he have to flee from this heart long ago and are you harbouring the counterfeit, the temporal one? And wh around do you do this? – Wilt thou not take upon thyself any of the hostility and persecution [232] ? – Know this: In adversity and death, in fear and judgement, only the Christ proclaimed to you by the righteous Word of God will stand firm.
As a high school student, I once visited an art exhibition by Rudolf Schiestl in Nuremberg. Suddenly I was standing in front of the painting: „The Flight into Egypt“. The artist had placed it completely in the Franconian landscape. On the slope in the background, snow flecks of the departing winter, Mary and Joseph in Franconian costume. I looked at the picture for a long time and it made me feel more and more at home because everything was so Franconian. Then all of a sudden I was startled: „Escape to Egypt from Franconia?“ – Yes, that can exist, flight of the Child Jesus out of Franconia, flight of the Child Jesus out of Swabia, flight of the Child Jesus out of Germany. „He came into his own, and his own received him not!“ – I can’t forget the picture!
How happy the wise men must have been that they were received in Jerusalem in such a friendly way and ready to serve , and that Herod himself wanted to worship the newborn king. They must have been delighted to tell Mary and Joseph that even Herod wanted to come out and bow down before the child, and the two of them must have been amazed enough in their joy: Should it really be allowed that even the mighty and great of this world bend their knees before the Saviour of the world in the manger? Their hearts were full of grateful joy! – Then God opened the eyes of all of them and tore the fog apart, and there they stood terrified before this abyss of pious lies. What all was broken for them in that moment! If God had not opened their eyes, they themselves would not have seen this evil game through for a long time. [Oh, how could they have believed such things of men? Herod can say: „Go and search diligently for the infant; and when you find him, tell me again, that I also may come and worship him,“ and can pretend that he is in earnest to show due honour and worship to the infant Jesus – and yet he is Herod. Now the wise men can never return to him, must never return, otherwise they would be doing executioner’s work. God forbids them: „And God commanded them in a dream that they should not turn again to Herod.
How happy we all were in 1933 when the SA marched unitedly into the churches. You all know it as well as I do. And we thought that perhaps a time was dawning when the Child Jesus would once again be accorded proper worship and honour. And today?
And now, dear congregation, all this would be bearable. Many things happen in the world. But we are not talking about just anyone. It is about the one whom God has made Saviour of the world! And that is why everything becomes so incredibly serious and important! Whoever seeks his life will pay for it with death! – „They are dead who seek the life of the child“, it says here. And behind this „they died“ is eternal death! „For there is salvation in no other, neither is there any other name under heaven mel given unto men, wherein we shall be saved!“ And that is why it is such an untainable misery when one wants to alienate the Saviour from the children and the young generation in particular and tear him from their hearts. We have no eyes for this misery and this lamentation only because it is a bloodless, Bethlehem-like infanticide that is taking place here. It should be so that we could see it, as in the case of an epidemic that afflicts children. There should be hearses driving for those who have had Christ torn from their hearts, for the victims of this bloodless Bethlehemite infanticide, then our skin would shiver! But because it is not visible on the outside, most people do not care or do not want to see or hear anything about it and bury their heads in the sand. Believe me, it is no pleasure to keep pointing out this need, especially when many do not understand or do not want to understand. But are we pastors supposed to bear the burden alone? It concerns the whole congregation, it concerns the whole Church, it concerns every baptised person! You are all responsible for ensuring that the Gospel is preserved for our people, for our children.
A glaring light on the state of youth education and the conflicts of conscience and decisions into which the youth are driven, for which very few are mature and which they are therefore unable to cope with, is thrown by the statement of the Untergauführerin Königsbauer in the Highland camp in 1937. She says, for example: „I know that you all agree with me in rejecting political Catholicism. But that alone is no longer the issue today; it is about the eradication of Christianity in general. Clear fronts must be created between Christianity and National Socialism. It is not yet possible to reach the people with this, but I must have clarity among my leaders. You must decide: One is the Nazi worldview, the other is the Christian worldview. Whoever decides for Christianity is a traitor!“ – A few have decided in favour of Christ and have been sent away in disgrace. Perhaps you now understand that someone who knows about such hidden anti-Christian activity from other facts simply does not dare to remain silent, and that I must warn as long as I can, already for the sake of my schoolchildren and especially for the sake of my confirmands (…), and I also call you parents to responsibility for your children.
As you know, here in Senden and also in Weissenhorn I have spoken openly and honestly about all these needs. I have also done so with a clear conscience because I have repeatedly and openly approached the responsible authorities in the state and the party, up to and including the Reich Chancellor.
Now, with effect from 1 January 1939, my teaching licence was withdrawn on the basis of a sermon in Weissenhorn, on the grounds that I was an incorrigible, hateful opponent of the Party and the State. I then went back to the responsible authorities and explained that no matter how often I repeated such claims, it was not proof. I also raised the question whether what I had said did not correspond to the facts and stated that if such an outrageous accusation was justifiably made, it should be a small matter to substantiate and prove it in a proper court case. For this reason, the church service in Weissenhorn, I have been deprived of my teaching. The failure to provide proof of my Aryan status was added afterwards. So why did I not provide the Aryan certificate as a so-called state religion teacher? My name bearers – Steinbauer – had been farmers in Franconia for centuries, as their name suggests. In the present case, I should acquire the right to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ Old and New Testament by providing the Aryan certificate. This is impossible for me as a Christian and ordained preacher of Jesus Christ. According to this racial law, the Lord Christ would be incapable and unqualified to preach his own message and would not be allowed to enter any school, and so would his apostles, for they were Jews in the flesh, according to their race. If the Lord Christ must stand with his message at the school door, and his apostles, I will stand with them at the door. Of the Lord Christ it is said, „He was not ashamed to be called our brother.“ He, who was a Jew according to the flesh, was not ashamed of me, but became one of us. He sat down with me as with the publican and the sinner, and gives me whole fellowship in Holy Communion. And now I am supposed to give notice in the schoolroom to the person who, according to these racial laws, is not even allowed to enter such a schoolroom. He is standing in front of the door. The word: „The Word became flesh“ is too important to me and I need it too much in my practical, daily life to „spiritualise“ and deny it. „I believe in the Holy Spirit … the communion of saints.“ This article of faith, too, I understand far too much from the word, „The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,“ and therefore quite physical and tangible. I cannot, if I separate myself by the Aryan proof for the office of proclamation from the one who was a Jew when he became flesh, of the word: „I am with you always, even to the end of the age“. For these reasons, it is simply not possible for me, in my existence as a Christian and ordained preacher, to place myself under a law of the state that wants to make the proclamation of the gospel and thus the communion of saints dependent on Aryan blood and denies the Holy Spirit and the communion of saints. I know well that only a few understand me in this, because only very few have even thought about it. But I do not see the demand for this proof as something individual, but can only see it in the larger context and only as a further step towards the systematic encirclement and embracing of the free proclamation of Christ’s message, which can also be clearly seen in other points, e.g. the suppression of the Old Testament from teaching, etc. It is also evident to me from these actions that today’s state no longer knows that it has overcome the biblical message and submits to it, but that conversely it wants to impose more and more of its foreign law on the Church of Jesus Christ, which the Church cannot admit if it wants to remain what it is supposed to be: Church of Jesus Christ. – If, for example, the Aryan certificate is required when enlisting in the military, I will of course present it at, but not in order to acquire the right to preach as an ordained preacher of Jesus Christ.
I know well that I am only a human being and that I can err, and I am always open to being told something by the Word of God and on the Word of God, and to being bound and loosed. But I cannot let myself be bound and loosened by unbiblical reasons in my conscience, which only wants to be bound by the Word of God.
One does not look for a lonely path by oneself. But as long as I have a clear conscience and a joyful faith, I will continue on the path I have chosen with God’s help. It may well be that in the future the whole congregation and church will have to walk more and more on a lonely path. If we walk the path only with Christ, then the loneliest path is not lonely. But if Christ has to flee from our hearts, then it will be lonely, even if we stand in the midst of the great multitude.
„The flight into Egypt“ and alongside it the „Bethlehemite infanticide“ up to the bloodless Bethlehemite infanticide of our days was brought before our eyes through the Herod story. With all the serious, terrible and cruel things that came before our eyes, we have no reason to stand still in sadness. We want to see openly the seriousness of the responsibility and not bury our heads in the sand, and we want to move all this in our hearts, so that each one in his place may carry out his office honestly and cheerfully as one who belongs to Christ and has to proclaim him. Let this stand out before us in a great way: Throughout the centuries, Christ has proved himself to be the living One whom no cunning and no violence can touch, and who sits at the right hand of God and is inviolable, and who is with us all the days of our life, in all temptation, trouble, tribulation, fear, persecution, until the end of the world. Herod dies, Christ lives. We also have reason enough today to rejoice with gratitude: „How glad I am that my treasure is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He will receive me to his praise in the paradeis; I clap my hands. Amen, amen, come thou beautiful sun of joy (sic!), stay not long, I wait for thee with longing.“ Amen.
Held on Sunday, 8 January 1939 in the Church of the Resurrection in Senden/Iller.
NAMENSgedächtnis 