Dr. Tim Kostamo is an esteemed
parishioner, a devoted husband and father of four, and a respected orthopedic
surgeon. But he has spent time in jail.
How he landed behind bars has
a great deal to teach us.
The year was 1977. Tim had
remarkable parents, deeply devout Protestant missionaries from Finland. They
were the kind of Christians who knew God was talking directly to them when he
said, “Go preach the Gospel to all nations.”
And so, they turned their
minds and hearts to a place, not far from Finland, where the Gospel was not
preached: the former Soviet Union. They became missionaries to Communist Russia
and bravely smuggled Bibles hidden in the floor of their camper.
To avoid suspicion – and perhaps
to save on babysitters – their children came along. The Kostamos ran a number
of successful missions delivering the Scriptures to Russians hungry for the
Word of God.
Until one day, when they were
betrayed. The border guards knew just where to look and found the store of hidden
Bibles. Immediately, the whole family was locked in a Russian jail.
And the discovery of the
Bibles was not the Kostamos’ greatest worry. Tim’s mother was carrying the
address list of the Christians and converts to whom they were going to deliver the
Scriptures. She knew it would bring great persecution and imprisonment to everyone
on the list if it fell into the hands of the Russian authorities.
Aided either by the guidance
of the Holy Spirit or the memory of spy movies – or both! – Mrs. Kostamo
pretended to be violently ill and dashed to the washroom before the guards
could grab her. As they pounded furiously on the locked bathroom door, she ate
the list.
Back in the cells, her
children were drinking polluted prison water and Tim fell wretchedly ill.
But things were still worse
for Mr. Kostamo. He was interrogated for four days without sleep or food. His
captors told him he faced a lifetime in the Gulag, the infamous Soviet
forced-labour camps. When the questioning finished, his interrogators said he
would never see his family again. They offered him one chance to say a quick
goodbye.
It was the most desperate situation
imaginable. Tim’s father did not know where to turn, even how to pray, in the
face of such terror.
Suddenly, Tim’s
three-year-old brother piped up. He quoted a verse of Scripture, from the first
Letter of St. Peter: “Cast all your cares on him, for he cares for you” (1
Peter 5:7).
Such words from the mouth of
a little child seem miraculous enough. But what happened next is harder still to
explain. Mr. Kostamo went back to the cell and announced to the guards that they
had no authority over him.
And they let him go.
That prophetic promise from a
three-year-old brings to mind the words of Psalm 8: “Out of the mouths of babes
and infants you have drawn a defense against your foes, to silence enemy and avenger”
(8:2).
But who among us wants to
count on a three-year-old in time of crisis? And is there any family here whose
children grew up so steeped in Scripture as did the Kostamos?
Tonight we celebrate the fact
that a child has been born for us, a son given to us, and that authority rests
upon his shoulders (cf. Isaiah 9:6).
This child does not quote the
Word of God; he is the Word of God. And the Word he speaks has authority and
power. Power to lift burdens, power to break prison bars of addiction and
despair, power to shatter the iron rods of oppression of every kind.
I don’t know about you, but
my fine Catholic family did not take missionary trips into the heart of
darkness. I didn’t grow up living the faith with such high stakes. So how can
we claim a share of the power that delivered a family from prison, restored the
health of a very sick youngster, and made sure such a dreadful experience did
nothing to dampen the evangelizing zeal of Tarmo and Eila Kostamo, who continue
as pastors and missionaries to the present day?
On this Christmas night, I
offer a one word answer. Trust. The verse from First Peter, “cast all your
cares on him, for he cares for you”, can be translated in several different
ways. All of them invite us to trust in the face of our fears, be they great or
small. The plainest translation, the Jerusalem Bible, says simply, “unload all
your worries unto him, since he is looking after you”.
What better day to put our
trust in God than the day he has shown himself to our eyes in the unthreatening
form of a child?
Trust is more than the
decision of a moment. It’s an attitude to God and his providence that deeply
affects our relationship with him. After early childhood, trust is rarely
instinctive. We learn to trust. We pray to trust. We practice trust.
In our Christian tradition,
trust is linked with faith, and particularly with hope. We may trust
confidently, and yet, always, there is still an element of the unknown; otherwise,
trust would be the same as utter certainty. It’s not. St. Thomas Aquinas calls
trust “a strengthened hope”.
In his Letter to Titus, St.
Paul tells us that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. He
makes it clear, though, that there is more to come, and that we must hope for
it. We must wait for it.
And while we wait, we can
grow in trust.
Tim Kostamo gave us a great
gift by letting me share his family’s story of trust and deliverance with you
tonight. The parish would like to give you a small gift that might help you
grow in faith as his family did, whatever the challenges you are facing now, or
may face in future.
It’s a “Litany of Trust”
written by the Sisters of Life, a young religious order who vow to protect and
enhance the sacredness of every human life. The prayers on this little card
help us to ask Jesus to deliver us from the things that bind us, and to place
our trust in his promises. The Litany is simple, but prayed sincerely and often,
it has power to change our hearts.
It’s unlikely any of us will
get locked up for smuggling Bibles. But most of us are bound by one thing or
another. And all of us need to place our trust in God’s promises if we are to
have the peace that the Angels proclaim on this holy night.
