Our witness and our advocate

1 John 2:1 (NKJV)

1 My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

We know God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins so we should not take advantage of such grace and mercy. Instead it should be our desire to live as Christ; for not only did Christ provide us with saving grace, Jesus Christ is also our advocate taking up for us when we do sin. So not only did Christ bear our sin on the cross, but Jesus Christ also pleads that the sin He died for will be forgiven.

Witold Pilecki was a Polish army captain, a devout Catholic and patriotic Pole who volunteered at age 39 for one of the singular missions of World War II: to get into Auschwitz. “The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery” (Aquila Polonica: 2012), documents, in his own words, Pilecki’s remarkable exploits

On Sept. 19, 1940, Pilecki left the hideout of the underground Polish Home Army, which he helped create, to deliberately enter a German roundup. He was taken to Auschwitz, where he survived vicious beatings, starvation and pneumonia, and, at the same time, set about organizing resistance units, boosting morale and documenting the murder taking place there.

Beginning in 1941, Pilecki used couriers to smuggle out detailed reports of Auschwitz atrocities, reports that reached the Polish resistance and the British government in London. In 1942, he helped organize a secret radio station, using scrap parts, that regularly broadcast the numbers of arrivals and deaths at the camp.

“The game that I was now playing at Auschwitz was dangerous,” Pilecki wrote in his report. “This sentence does not really convey the reality; in fact, I had gone far beyond what people in the real world would consider dangerous.”

Pilecki’s detailed reports of what was happening inside Auschwitz revealed the treachery of the “final solution” to a world that believed the camp only held Polish and Soviet prisoners of war. Perhaps because he wrote in factual, unemotional language, perhaps because he wasn’t a Jew, his observations continue to carry an irrefutable weight.

Pilecki eventually escaped and reported the atrocities that had taken place at Auschwitz.

[Excepts from jewishjournal.com, Rob Eshman, The Man who snuck into Auschwitz, 10/5/2012]

This is a beautiful example of how one man lived like Christ. He stepped from his world of comfort into a world where horrific things took place. He walked among the people having to live as they did and experience what they experienced so he could report firsthand the things that took place.

Jesus died for our sins and continues to be an advocate for us in heaven. He continues to give report for us and stands up for us whenever we call upon His name. May it be that we do not sin, because Jesus gave His life for the death of sin we were to bear alone.