Kber-03 the Coming Holocaust 3 of 3 — Art Katz

From Marxist Self-Sufficiency to Humiliation

The authority, angry Marxist radical, atheist, a despiser of religion, especially Christianity, proud and self-sufficient, humanist, man is capable of intelligent answer to any problem. Even if he is married to a German from Stuttgart, who was a part of the Hitler Youth and is schizophrenic as a victim of that war time.

Okay, hotshot Katz, where is your love now? Your romantic love and your understanding and patience. When this frenzied woman attacks you out of the distress of her own psyche, a self-victim of the recent war, and finds the one place where you are vulnerable in your Jewishness and attacks you there as a German, where is your good sense then?

Where is your superior understanding then? Where are your humanist presumptions then? Down! Down with it! God knows how to deal with us Jews. So I could ask the greatest questions in my history classes of an ethical and moral kind, but I was not myself able to answer them or live it.

God brought me down as he will bring my Jewish kinsmen down, whether through internal persecution or external. We will be rooted up, not only from our physical places of security, but from our categories, whether they are religious or philosophical or moral or political.

And so I left California, taking a year's leave of absence from the teaching profession, with a pack on my back, hitchhiking, the cheapest way to travel and the most humiliating in Europe, Middle East, looking for some philosophical stone that was unturned.

Even traveling through Germany, didn't you see me at the side of the road? Or maybe you didn't want to see me, for that man is angry and formidable. Why take the risk? But I praise God for those who did.

Encountering the Crucified and Resurrected Christ

The German art teacher that I met at Bodensee on vacation. We had wonderful fellowship. There was such a sensitivity. He was such a man. He knew about culture and art. The deep things of this life. And he said, Arthur, you need to go out of your way to Colmar, France, and see the great masterpiece of the crucified Christ.

What's in it for me? What has that to do with my Jewishness? But at his recommendation, because he was the man that he was, who picked me up and took me in, and shared with me his life, his faith, I went.

And how shall I describe to you, how I stood before that great masterpiece? A masterpiece of the Holy Spirit. Of a human wreck. You don't know that you're looking at a man or some kind of twisted animal.

Every bone is out of joint. The mouth is hanging open in death with white lips. The crown crushed into his head. Pieces of glass and metal flagellation from the whips. And dead flesh already becoming green and dangering.

So repulsive a sight. You want to turn away. But you cannot. There's something so compelling in that unspeakable suffering and death, anguish of soul and body, that I was arrested. And I remain arrested still.

And I came around the back of the painting. The same Jesus who hangs so forlornly on the cross in death, is breaking forth out of the tomb in resurrection glory. And every place where his flesh has been wounded, beams of glory are pouring forth.

That's how God dealt with me. I met him face to face as one mark more than any man. As my people will see him in their soon coming time of expulsion. In the wilderness of the nations. They shall see the beauty of the Lord.

In your faces. The revelation of the crucified and resurrected one. To the degree that he has been made your life. And not just your religious credo. Fourteen months of travel. By the side of the road.

Picked up consistently nation after nation by born again believers. And when I came to Switzerland, outside of Zurich, waiting in the rain for three hours, and the cars passing by that chose not to see.

The exact choice that will be before you. When did we see you naked, thirsty, hungry and in prison? Is a chosen seeing. And a man stopped for me in a new car. And he didn't just wave me on, hurry up, I'm doing you a favor.

He got out of the car and greeted me. And took my filthy wet rucksack and put it in the back seat of his car. Without even being aware of what it was doing to his upholstery. I thought what manner of man is this?

What's in it for him? That he should pick me up. And treat me as if I were the exalted guest. And as we drove off he said to me in German. Why are you traveling like this? You're not a high school kid.

This is not the tourist season. Why are you traveling like this? So well as I could I tried to explain. I said I am a modern man. If we Jews are anything, we are the modern man. We have invented modernity.

And I said my life is broken at its foundations. And I'm seeking for the answers of life. And I'm a Jew. I said why did you say that? Now you're going to turn him off. Now he'll be offended. And I turned cautiously to see what would happen.

And the man was beaming. As if a light had been turned on. As if being a Jew somehow is something special. Not in any way that I could have understood. But in some way that he understands. That has not yet come to me.

The Stranger Who Listened and Washed Feet

Oh he insisted we stop at a coffee house for refreshment. What a golden moment. Such a conversation. What did he say brother? What did he say? Did he say are you saved? Do you know Jesus? Had he said anything like that.

I would be dead today. I did not need another slogan. Another religious cliché. I had enough of that as a Marxist. I didn't need it as religious. But he never said anything like that. But what a listener.

Drawing my heart out. That I was sharing with him the deepest secrets of my anguished life. My sense of hopelessness for the future of mankind. Despair. To a gentile stranger. But something in him drew me out.

So that I shared with him such intimate things I had never shared with another. When I finished I had nothing more to say. I was at my end. What is this man going to tell me? I have been a Marxist. I am a university graduate.

There is nothing new under the sun. And I looked at him. Nothing special to look at. Quite ordinary. Unspectacular. Like you. And he looked up at me and he said quietly. Arthur, do you know what it is that the world needs?

I said, well, he knows how to ask the questions. I said, what? Defiant and proud. What? How can you tell me? That I have already not been exposed. He said, Arthur, what the world needs is for men to wash one another's feet.

When I heard that something broke. The socialist Marxist world saver. In which no program can suffice. That is humanly engineered. But a spirit of humility washing one another's feet. I had never heard of such a thing.

What an answer. What a word. That came to me from the throne of heaven. By the God who knew me. And watched all of my searchings and my motions looking for answers. Unable to live with a German wife. I fell out of my seat.

So to speak. Whimpering on the floor. While physically I remained seated with my arms over my chest. So don't be discouraged. When you think that your word is not having any effect on us Jews. And you don't see any gratifying response.

You have no idea of the depth of penetration. That your word has effected in us. If it is not a religious cliché. Or the cheap employment of John 3 .16. But the appointed word. The Holy Spirit given word.

Calculated for our penetration. Which you are able to speak. Which you are able to speak. In that crisis moment. Not because of religious responsibility. But because of your covenant union with God. Who knows the man that he has set before you.

And knows exactly the word that he needs to hear. And can express it through you. Because your own categories are out of the way. You are in union with him. And your thought is his thought. Your word is his word.

And it brings the arrogant man down. And before I could recover. I had no speech. This man went on to tell me about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Went on to tell me the gospel. I wanted to protest. I wanted to protest.

I said, listen, this is not for me, I am Jewish. This is for the Gentiles. But I had no voice. And I had to hear him silently. And when I left that day, that night. I did not walk out of that building.

I staggered. Like a drunkard. Day after day. Meeting after meeting. In the wilderness of the nations. Uprooted from my security, my culture, my categories. I was being exposed to the God of my fathers.

By Gentile men and women who knew him. Or they would not have stopped. The very next day. I am walking the woods around Winterthur. And there is an American girl on vacation. Half my age. Gentile of the Gentiles.

That we Jews call a wasp. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. The deadliest combination. I should have been repelled. But I was attracted. And drawn. Drawn by something. That exuded out of the innocence of this girl.

Willing to spend time with me. Walk the woods with me. Unafraid. I said, what is your motive? How is it you are so kind? I have never seen kindness. I have only seen ideologies. She answered every question the same way.

The Light of God in a Gentile Witness

She said, it is the love of God. Every question, it is the love of God. You want to drive a Jewish Atheist up the wall? Keep telling him the love of God. Finally my patience was exhausted. I said, look kid.

You are a nice girl. I appreciate your kindness. But I cannot tolerate this God talk. Answer me one question that no Christian has ever successfully answered for me. For my hobby was to engage Christians in debate and wipe them out.

So what was this little girl to me? So I brought myself up to my full intimidating stature. You have been talking about God. Answer me one question no Christian has ever been able to answer. How do you know He is?

I thought, I got her now. There will be a long silence. She will think of something she learned in Sunday school. Some little, little thing. And I will roll over. Like a great steamroller. But not a moments hesitation.

This little thing looked up at me. With her sandy hair and freckles and snub nose. And she answered instantly. Archie said, I know that God is. He lives in me. Down, down went the ox. For a second time.

And I don't know how long it took for me to recover. The power of that statement. I thought to myself. Where did it get its power? It wasn't theological. It wasn't intellectual. But it's true. And she has the face to prove it.

And in that moment. Proud, arrogant, intellectual. University educated teacher. I realized that I was in darkness. And she was in the light. And the light that she had could not be found in any institution I attended or could ever attend.

I was moved to jealousy. For I saw the light that lightens the Gentiles. Is also the glory of the people of Israel. So when I share my story. A man sifted through the nations. Through such exposures as I'm describing.

Reading the New Testament and Hearing Jesus

To bring me to a final place of surrender. So that Jesus who finally revealed himself to me. Directly. In the first reading of a new testament. The history teacher who said. You need to go to the primary sources.

I myself had never gone. I only heard of Jesus second hand. Saw those catholic crucifixes. And the depiction on velvet hangings. Of Jesus looking very un-Jewish. But to read him in his own book. Out of his own words.

For which I had been prepared. By all of the previous contacts I've described to you. Came the revelation of the Lord. One statement out of his own mouth. Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

Well I spent months in Egypt. Representing a Jewish museum from California. Smuggling out religious and other art treasures. The Jewish community that then existed there. Observing orthodox Judaism. And seeing the inadequacy of religion.

And brought finally to Israel. After having suffered hepatitis in Egypt. Coming with an infected ear that was oozing out of my head. Staying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Where a young rabbi wanted to save me for Judaism.

Didn't work. The last thing I was to be sent to an orthodox Jewish community. Never got there. Put me on the wrong bus. Lost in Jerusalem. Going around in circles. And too Jewish to do that. I got out.

And went into the first store that I could find. A bookstore. Lovely Jewish woman at the counter. Made me a map where I should go. But before I could leave. I took a closer look at the books. New Testaments and Christian commentaries, Bibles.

I looked into her Jewish face. And I said what is this place? Oh she said innocently. This is our bookstore joining our chapel. We are a congregation of Jewish believers in the Messiah Jesus. I never heard such a thing.

Jewish Believers, the Peace of God, and Conversion

When she said that something in my inner man went click. And the voice calling me by name. Commanding me. Art. You are not to leave. I obeyed the voice of him with whom I have to do. Staying four days and nights with Jewish Pentecostals.

Not able to understand what they are trying to explain to me about the Messiah and the Old Testament. And I did not understand what they were trying to explain to me about the Old Testament, about the Jewish Messiah.

How can God ask a Jew to be a Christian? This will kill my mother. In fact it saved her. And when I saw how these people worshipped God. Yes I went to synagogues and churches over the years. But that was only religion.

But when I saw them in worship. They had their hands stretched over their heads. And tears coursing down their faces. As they stretched their arms and their sleeves pulled back. I saw the tattooed number from concentration camps.

Jews praising God in the name of Jesus. Having passed through that. That overwhelmed me. And on the last night I was so confused. And I could not simply save myself by the power of my mind. In my sleep.

God gave me a direct understanding in my heart. By passing my mind. My Jewish idolatry. I woke up on the morning of May 26, 1964 believing. I woke up in the shalom of God. I woke up in the peace of God.

After a lifetime of agitation. And then I came to the breakfast table. And I said to this lady with whom I am still in correspondence. Reena I believe I understand. The poor thing fell out of her seat on the floor.

Her final prayer was. Lord we have done everything for this stubborn man. You make him to understand. She said now you need to pray. And call upon the name of the Lord. I should call him in the name of Jesus.

Whose name I only pronounced as blasphemy. Everything contends against such a call. This is not a vocalization that we Jews can perform at will. Any more than my mother could ten days before I was born.

In her 96th year. Call on the name of the Lord is a mercy. That is given. And with all of the oppressive voices against it. You will become a traitor to your people. You are joining the enemy's camp. This will kill your mother.

You will lose your friends, your esteem. One still small voice. I will let no wise cast out any man who comes unto me. And out of my mouth. I would not dignify that by calling it a prayer. It was a spurt.

From the grace of God. To get Jesus out. And with it something came out. Dark. The evil of a lifetime. Of ego and lust. And in came something new. The Ruach HaKodesh. I was born of the Holy Spirit. I came back to America a new man.

Opposition, Testimony, and a New Community

Christ Jesus. They made a party for me. My colleagues. And on the first evening. I lost every colleague. When I shared with them what happened to me. And a few months later. I was invited by a local church.

To give my testimony. I just shared with them as I'm sharing with you. And a woman came up to me at the end of the meeting. You don't know me brother Katz. You had my daughter in your history class. She came home from school.

Every afternoon weeping over you. Since that day she said. Both my daughter and I have never ceased to pray for you. The Lord gave me an elbow in my ribs. He said she's the one. There's nothing to look at gentile woman.

Her prayers have entered you into the kingdom of heaven. And being in that heavenly kingdom. Where have I not been? Even with Klaus. Yugoslavia. Germany many places. Israel. Indonesia. Asia. Serving the Lord.