An Old Man's Answer

During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, a Dutch pastor visited the ten Boom watchmaker's shop in Haarlem. Seeing a Jewish infant the family had taken in, he warned that harboring Jews could cost them their lives. Casper ten Boom, eighty-four years old, lifted the baby and replied, "I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family."

Since 1943, Casper and his daughters Corrie and Betsie had sheltered Jewish refugees in a hidden room behind a false wall in Corrie's bedroom at Barteljorisstraat 19. They ran drills so anyone could reach the space within seventy seconds of an alarm. Over the course of the war, their network helped save an estimated eight hundred Jewish lives.

The cost was everything. On February 28, 1944, an informant betrayed the family to the Gestapo. Casper died ten days later at Scheveningen prison. Betsie perished at Ravensbrück concentration camp that December.

Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13). Casper ten Boom understood this not as theology to admire but as a command to obey. He did not weigh the cost against his comfort — he weighed it against his calling.

Most of us will never face the Gestapo. But every day brings quieter invitations to the same sacrificial love — the kind that protects the vulnerable when it is costly or dangerous. The question Casper answered with his life still stands before every believer: Is loving your neighbor an honor you are willing to bear?