In Honor of Bonhoeffer

My studies this fall have taken me into the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The seminar course I've been taking has delved into his Christology lectures, Discipleship, and now his Ethics. He is a quite a theologian--both complex and simple: Complex in that while he turns many phrases that lend themselves to quotability, those phrases shorn of their anchor in context are amenable to manipulation; simple in that no part of his theology escapes being anchored in the person of Jesus Christ. Everything... everything is focused on Jesus. In honor of that focus, I post the lyrics below. They're from a hymn by Annie Johnson Flint with a tune by Oskar Ahnfelt.

I look not back; God knows the fruitless efforts.

The wasted hours, the sinning, the regrets.

I leave them all with Him who blots the record,

And graciously forgives, and then forgets.

I look not forward, God sees all the future,

The road that, short or long, will lead me home,

And He will face with me its ev'ry trial,

And bear for me the burdens that may come.

I look not round me; then would fears assail me,

So wild the tumult of earth's restless seas,

So dark the world, so filled with woe and evil,

So vain the hope of comfort and of ease.

I look not inward; that would make me wretched;

For I have naught on which to stay my trust.

Nothing I see save failures and shortcomings,

And week endeavors crumbling into dust.

But I look up - into the face of Jesus,

For there my heart can rest, my fears are stilled;

And there is joy, and love, and light for darkness,

And perfect peace, and every hope fulfilled.

Ahhh.... Jesus only. Cf. Mat 17:8 "When they looked up, all they saw was Jesus alone."