November:  Berlin Wall Falls

     Everyone knows what a woodpecker is.  But do you know what a wall pecker is?  On November 9, 1989, Gunter Schabowski, the head of the Communist East German Politburo, announced that the gates between East and West Germany would be opened.  For the first time since the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, free travel between the two Germanys was allowed.  Immediately, Germans from both sides of that inglorious symbol of Communist oppression gathered at the wall.  They brought with them hammers, chisels, picks, and crowbars.  For the next several weeks they chipped away and the bricks and concrete, collecting souvenirs for themselves and punching holes through to the other side.  They were called mauerspechtes , wall peckers.  The next summer the German government brought in the heavy equipment and by the next November the job was complete.  Nothing remained of the Berlin Wall .

     There was something immensely satisfying about seeing the German people whacking away at the Berlin Wall with hand tools.  Germans on the west side chipping away toward the Germans on the east side who were chipping away toward them.  Finally, there would be a tiny break through and a finger could be thrust in to touch a finger from the other side.  Cheers and tears.  It was all symbolic, of course.  The gates were open.  They could cross over anytime they wanted.

     Because of our sin there is a wall that separates us from God.  Unlike the Germans we can labor and chip at this wall all we want, but it is impenetrable from our side.  We cannot work our way to God.  He had to come get us.  He had to punch the hole through the wall.  It’s God’s grace, extended to us though the death and resurrection of His one and only Son, Jesus Christ that brings down the wall.  God did not chip away at it either.  He felled it, blew it apart, ground it to dust, all in one weekend, starting on Friday and ending on Sunday morning.

     The wall of sin was completely obliterated.  Our contribution to our salvation is to simply walk across the ruins by repenting of out sins and accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  The wall the Communists constructed in 1961 came down oh so slowly.  The wall the Evil One built at the fall of Eden came down in one fell swoop.  So is the power and the glory and the love of the Almighty God and His Son.