I love to find a story in an old book that stops me in my tracks and provides a great illustration of some spiritual truth. The book may be old, but the story is a fresh insight and any congregation appreciates that.

First, a tiny bit of history which pertains to both stories that follow. At the end, I’ll give the sources for the stories.

In June of 1940, when the Nazis took over France, they sealed off the northernmost two-thirds of the country and left the southern one-third to the administration of the French government which was headquartered in the small town of Vichy. Thereafter, Vichy France, while imperfect in a hundred ways, became known as Free France and the longed-for destination of countrymen suffering under Nazi control. The Germans did everything they could to prevent citizens from crossing the borders and escaping.

First story: A door in the back of the cemetery.

A small French village was situated right on the border between the two Frances.  The Nazis did everything they could to seal the border to make sure no citizens escaped.  However, the population of the town kept dwindling.  Something was happening, but the Germans couldn’t figure what.

What had happened is that the villagers had remembered something about the ancient cemetery.  While the entrance to the graveyard lay inside the town, and the huge wall seemed to seal it off, in the rear was an old gate that had been sealed up for as long as anyone could recall.  So, the villagers unsealed the gate.  Thereafter, when they held funerals, they walked into the cemetery  as though they were mourners, but kept walking right on out the back, into the land of the free.

Think of this as an illustration of resurrection. When Jesus died and rose again, He opened a door on the back side of the cemetery. We still make that sad trek into the graveyard, but we don’t stick around. We keep on walking right out the back side into the land of life and liberty!

Jesus said, “Because I live, you too shall live.”

Second Story:  The path across the border.

In 1941, when the Nazis began brutalizing the Jews of France, the parents of Maurice,12, and Joseph Joffo,10, told them they would be sending them to live with relatives in unoccupied France. Each was given 5,000 francs, or about 10 dollars, to pay his way on the train. They would travel to the border town of Dax, then find a way to cross the border into freedom. “You are enterprising young men,” Mr. Joffo said.  “You will find a way to get across the border.”  Once they arrived in Marseilles, they would have to locate their kinsmen and remain until the parents were able to join them.

Once they arrived in Dax, the boys discovered the fare for hiring a “passeur,” someone to lead them through the night across the heavily guarded border, was 5,000 francs each, more money than they had left. Since they were small boys, no adults paid them any attention, so they were able to walk around town and pick up information.  Eventually, they found a local delivery boy who agreed to lead them across the border for 500 francs each, the equivalent of one dollar.

Late that night, they met the delivery boy.  He led them across town, down a back alley, over a small creek, through a pasture, and finally across the border, delivering them at a barn where other escapees were gathering. Maurice and Joseph paid him and he left. The exhausted boys lay back on the hay and went to sleep. Sometime during the night, Joseph discovered Maurice had vanished. He was about to panic, when he found in his pocket a note in Maurice’s handwriting.  “Don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

The next morning, when Joseph awakened, the barn was filled with people who had crossed the border.  Maurice was there, too.  “What happened to you?” Joseph asked.  Maurice whispered that, last night, lying there in the hay,  it occurred to him that since he now knew the way across the border, he could help others. He had gone back and forth all night, leading group after group across the border into the barn, by now overflowing with grateful travelers.

He knew the way across the border and was leading others.

One who leads others through the night, crossing the dangerous border into freedom—does that remind you of anyone? Everyone before him had made the journey and then gone on. But this one had turned back to lead others through the night to life and freedom.

“But now is Christ risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep….Even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” (I Corinthians 15:20,22)

(The account of the cemetery on the border between Free and Occupied France comes from Etta Shiber’s book, “Paris Underground,” published in 1943 by Press Alliance.)

(The story of Maurice and Joseph comes from Joseph Joffo’s book, “A Bag of Marbles,” published in 1974 by Houghton Mifflin Company.)