“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you . . .”

– Luke 6:27 (ESV)

Below is the story of the selfless (and self-sacrificing) love of 16th century Anabaptist martyr Dirk Willems from Profiles of Mennonite Faith:

Dirk Willems was racing across the thinly frozen pond. He was racing for his life. He knew that returning meant death. Dirk was an Anabaptist (a sixteenth-century name for many Mennonites), and Anabaptists all over Europe were being tortured and put to death. If the guard caught him it would be his life. So he ran as fast as he could. But he was weakened, in fact quite thin and light, from his stay in prison. He was so light that he made it over the thin ice of the pond, the “Hondegat.” But his pursuer, stronger and heavier, did not make it across. The ice cracked, the guard fell in, and soon the cold water swirled above his head. He was gasping as he tried to get out, but the ice kept breaking. The guard was sure he would drown in the icy waters.

Suddenly he saw a hand reaching for him and a voice telling him to hold on and to be calm. Slowly but surely Dirk pulled him from the water and to the safety of the pond’s edge. Soon the exhausted guard realized that it was Dirk who had saved him. The prisoner trying to escape had come back to save the guard. The guard, exhausted but happy to be alive, had no choice but to take Dirk back to prison.

Some weeks went by as Dirk languished in prison. One day the guard heard the judge in the courtroom next to the jail handing out the sentence. “Whereas Dirk Willems, born at Asperen, at present a prisoner has . . . confessed, that at the age of fifteen . . . he was rebaptized in Rotterdam, at the house of one Pieter Willems, and that he further, in Asperen, at his house, at diverse hours . . . permitted several persons to be rebaptized . . . therefore, we the aforesaid judges . . . do condemn the aforesaid Dirk Willems that he shall be executed with fire, until death ensues.”

Dirk Willems, imprisoned and condemned for his faith, was put to death in the flames.

[Hat tip The Christian Century via Michael Spencer]