Willing to Die
Josef Tson's most noteworthy contribution to the Church stems from his identity as a suffering saint. During the dictatorship of Nicolai Ceausescu in Romania, Dr. Tson wrote a paper on the principles of God’s way of life and gave the president a copy. Dr. Tson was immediately arrested and threatened with death if he did not rescind what he had written. His reply was a calm loving smile. The police demanded, “Why are you smiling?” He then revealed the secrets that overcame his fear and won the admiration of his captors. Dr. Tson was exiled by the Communist government for taking a stand in the defense of Christians abused by the regime. For years he spoke on the radio, known as “the pastor from Radio Free Europe.” (Courtesy Photo)
Special to United Methodist Insight | June 3, 2025
When I was pastor in Montello, Wisconsin in the late 1970s and early 80s, there was a survivalist group in the community called the Posse Comitatus. The Posse and their survivalist followers believed the whole world was on the brink of some major catastrophe.
To prepare for it, they were storing up food, first aid supplies, and buying guns and ammunition in great quantities. Their literature recommended eating just one meal a day. One of their pamphlets warned, “If you can’t eat it, wear it or shoot it, you don’t need it.” They built bunkers around their homes and engaged in paramilitary training. Their followers wore camouflage uniforms. It was a siege mentality.
The survivalists believed that, if the rest of civilization collapsed from economic depression, recession or war, they would be prepared to take care of their own. They believed in the survival of the fittest and they intended to be the fittest. Their philosophy was, “Take care of your own at all costs and let the rest of the world go to hell.”
This is also the premise of the popular television reality game show, “Survivor,” which has been on the CBS television network for 25 years. One tribe competes against another tribe and votes one person off the show each week, until at last only one person survives. What does it say about our culture, at this time in history, that millions of people watch “Survivor,” and other shows like it, where the object is to survive at the expense of all the others around you?
The disciples of Jesus were in survivalist mode when they locked themselves behind closed doors after the crucifixion. They were hiding because they feared the Jewish religious authorities or the Roman soldiers might kill them, too. It was a reasonable fear.
Their fear began to go away the moment Jesus himself “stood among them and said, “Peace be with you,” and “…showed them his hands and his side.” It changes everything when someone you know to be dead suddenly appears out of thin air and lets you touch his wounds.
When I began collecting vision stories, I was shocked to discover that Jesus still appears in this way to people today. Karen Steineke tells of being baptized in the chapel of Wauwatosa Avenue United Methodist church, in suburban Milwaukee, when she was 21 years old:
“As the pastor was performing the rite, I began to feel a warmth around me suffused and without form. I looked up to see the form of Jesus with an overpowering light surrounding him. For what seemed like minutes I was suspended in time and space. I felt such love and awe. I remember my tears, and, as we left the chapel, I tried to hide them from my husband because I was so overcome with a feeling one cannot describe.”
Once you have an experience like this you are never the same. You have looked over the edge of the world as we know it and there is no going back to the old understanding of reality and the old fears. This resurrection miracle transformed and energized the disciples and made it possible for them to give witness to the living Christ against great odds.
When you know Jesus is alive, when you know that death is not the end, everything changes. The disciples came out of that locked room no longer fearing for their own personal survival. Physical survival was no longer their chief concern. There are many things more important than personal survival.
Pastor Josef Tson was a prominent figure in the Romanian Baptist community, known for his outspoken faith and his experience with persecution under a Communist regime. He was exiled from Romania in 1981. When he decided to return after many years his friends tried to dissuade him, “If you return to Romania, your life will be in danger.”
But Josef Tson knew that God was leading him back to his home country. His friends were right though. After his return to Romania, he was persecuted and harassed by the police. One day a particular police officer threatened to kill him. And Joseph Tson responded by saying, “Sir, your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Sir, you know my sermons are all over the country on tapes now. If you kill me I will be sprinkling them with my blood. Whoever listens to them after that will say, ‘I’d better listen. This man sealed it with his blood.’ My sermons will speak ten times louder than before. So go on and kill me. I win the supreme victory then.”
After that day, Joseph Tson never doubted God’s call on his life. He preached without fear. He said, “For years I was a Christian who was cautious because I wanted to survive. I had accepted all the restrictions the authorities put on me because I wanted to live. Now I wanted to die, and they wouldn’t oblige. Now I could do whatever I wanted in Romania. For years I wanted to save my life and I was losing it. Now that I wanted to lose it, I was winning it.”
Who knows when, like Josef Tson, we might be called to give our lives as part of our witness to Christ? Most of us will never face a situation like this, but we do all have a Jesus call on our lives.
Henri Nouwen put it this way:
“We are not called to save the world, solve all problems, and help all people. But we each have our own unique call, in our families, in our work, in our world. We have to keep asking God to help us see clearly what our call is and to give us strength to live out that call with trust. Then we will discover that our faithfulness to a small task is the most healing response to the illnesses of our time.”
John Sumwalt
John Sumwalt is a retired United Methodist pastor and the author of “Shining Moments: Visions of the Holy in Ordinary Lives.”