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April 25 - August 12, 2017
Bonhoeffer believed that preaching—the proclamation of the word of God as revealed in Scripture—was the very heart of Christian life and worship.
During the Nazi years, Bonhoeffer understood his sermons both as a way of confessing his faith and as a prophetic means to call his church and his students to withstand the ideological spirit of the times. In
Remember, I am here. . . . You don’t need to search very far at all, nor to question or engage in all sorts of mysterious activity. I am here; that is, Jesus does not promise his coming, does not prescribe paths that might take a person to him, but simply says: I am here; whether we see Jesus or not, feel him or not, want him or not—none of this makes any difference over against the fact that Jesus is here with us, that he is simply wherever we are, and that we can do absolutely nothing. I am with you always . . .
tells us: You are standing under God’s love, God is holy, and you should also be holy; God wants to give you the Holy Spirit that you might also be holy.
From baptism to the grave, the word of the church accompanies us, places us under the assurance of the word: Remember, I am with you.
To young children, Jesus’ word is already proclaiming how God’s grace comes before all human actions; it then speaks to children of the sanctity of their parents’ love. To older children at play it speaks about God’s truthfulness, about God’s seriousness and goodness, about service as Christ’s followers, about heroic deeds and knightly deeds. To the young adult it speaks about the sanctity of the divine commission and about eternal goals, opening that person’s eyes to the glory of the world, to a yearning to roam beyond the temporal; and the word tells of the purity of God and of the heart. To
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This community itself is one of the forms of God’s revelation. God is with us as long as there is community. The most profound meaning of our ties to social life is that through it we are tied all the more securely to God.
If tribulation and anxiety come upon us, Jesus is with us and leads us over into God’s eternal kingdom. Jesus Christ is the breadth of our life and of our community. Jesus Christ is with us to the end of the world. This is the gift of Easter.
Those unfamiliar with the bitter bliss of waiting, of doing without while maintaining hope, will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.
We must wait for the greatest, most profound, most gentle things in life; nothing happens in a rush, but only according to the divine laws of germinating, growing, and becoming.
We have grown so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of the coming at Christmas that we no longer sense the awe that God’s coming should awaken in us. We have become dulled to the message; we only register what is welcome in it, what is pleasant, forgetting the powerful seriousness of the fact that the God of the worlds is approaching us on our small earth and now makes claims on us. God’s coming is truly not merely a message of joy, but first of all horrifying news for every person with a conscience.
And not until we have perceived the terror of the matter can we then also appreciate this incomparable act of beneficence.
But here we are confronted with the terrifying reality; Jesus is at the door, knocking, in reality, asking you for help in the figure of the beggar, in the figure of the degenerate soul in shabby clothes, encountering you in every person you meet. Christ walks the earth as long as there are people, as your neighbor, as the person through whom God summons you, addresses you, makes claims on you. That is the most serious and most blessed part of the Advent message. Christ is at the door; he lives in the form of those around us. Will you close the door or open it for him?
That is why the church will also not be popular, least of all on days like this.
But—we must ask further—what Christian would not know that the church, which is built on the gospel of Christ, would have more to say here, because it sees more?
response to rememberance of war should include prophetic call to a wider look
But what does being faithful mean here other than standing and falling with the word of Christ, with his preaching of the kingdom of peace, than knowing that despite everything Christ’s words are stronger than all the powers of evil? What does faithfulness of the church-community of Christ mean here other than calling out into this furious raging again and again—unto exhaustion, unto humiliation, unto martyrdom—the words of Christ that there should be peace, that there should be love, that there should be blessing, and that he is our peace, and that God is a God of peace? And the more they
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War serves peace, hate serves love, the devil serves God, the cross serves life.
Memorial Day in the church! What does that mean? It means holding up the one great hope from which we all live, the preaching of the kingdom of God.
But one can only abide in love unknowingly. Just as the eye does not see itself, love does not see itself. If I think that I am abiding in love, I am not abiding in love, because I am seeing myself. But only in blindness toward myself do I, abiding in love, walk my path with the confidence of God.
One cannot understand and preach the gospel concretely enough. A real evangelical sermon must be like holding a pretty red apple in front of a child or a glass of cool water in front of a thirsty person and then asking: do you want it?
The most dangerous thing about this criticism is that it contains some truth, but basically it is intended only to provide us with an excuse. It is so terribly easy to back away from all so-called external conditions and focus on the attitude: rich on the outside but being poor in one’s so-called attitude. It is so terribly easy to say that it is vulgar to understand the gospel as if it were about outward poverty and riches, while it really depends not on that but solely on the inner aspect. Now, I ask you, where in the story of the poor Lazarus does it say anything about his inner life?
We must end this audacious, sanctimonious spiritualization of the gospel. Take it as it is, or hate it honestly!
You may think with a little self-pity that you yourself are Lazarus. God alone knows if you are. But always keep asking if you are not perhaps after all the rich man. Who is Lazarus? Always the other one, the crucified Christ himself, who meets you in the form of a thousand people you would look down upon. Yes, he is the eternal Lazarus himself.
But if we come together as the crucified and risen ones of Jesus Christ, as those who have lost our prideful human life in order to win it anew in Christ, as those who were sentenced to death but pardoned—then we will find one another, then we would look into one another’s eyes and would recognize one another completely anew, as we are recognized by God. Then and only then could we love one another.
Today, immensely important things will be decided by whether we Christians have strength enough to show the world that we are not dreamers and are not those who walk with their heads in the clouds, that we don’t just let things come and go as they are, that our faith is really not the opium that lets us stay content in the midst of an unjust world, but that we, especially because we set our minds on things that are above, only protest all the more tenaciously and resolutely on this earth.
The apostle wants to tell us this incomprehensible, wonderful message. You have died—he doesn’t say that to us to torture us, not to cast us into despair, but simply and only because he can say in the next breath: “And your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
The visible world strides brutally and heartlessly and violently past all of this. But out of grace and mercy and great kindness, God gathers our burning, blazing life; he glorifies it for the sake of Jesus Christ; he builds it up new and good in that hidden world where the line of death that separates us from God has been taken away. Our true life is hidden—but it is grounded firmly in eternity. “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in his glory.” Amen.
We name the One who overcame fear and led it captive in the victory procession, who nailed it to the cross and committed it to oblivion; we name the One who is the shout of victory of humankind redeemed from the fear of death—Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Living One.
So look to Christ when you are afraid, think of Christ, keep him before your eyes, call upon Christ and pray to him, believe that he is with you now, helping you . . . Then fear will grow pale and fade away, and you will be free, through your faith in our strong and living Savior, Jesus Christ.
It does seem crazy, doesn’t it, that the church should not defend itself by every means possible in the face of the terrible threats coming at it from every side. What madness brought this Gideon into the world? But all this is only the foolishness of the Christian faith itself; that is what this story is about. It’s not about the particular command that was given; it’s not that which is valid for all the ages, but rather the foolishness, the stumbling block of living faith, which confesses, “With might of ours can naught be done, soon were our lost effected
Peter is nobody really, nobody but a person who confesses, a person who has met Christ standing in his path and has recognized him, and who now confesses his faith in Christ.
There is really only one question for a congregation to ask of its pastor: Are you offering us the eternal word of God, the word of life, wherever you can, in the pulpit and in daily life? Or are you giving us stones instead of bread? Are you giving us placebos that are perhaps more pleasant to take but do not satisfy our souls? Give us bread that fills our hungry souls!
Over the coffins of children and the elderly, over the coffins of the devout, who in simple faith in their last hour placed their hope only in Christ, the angels sing: “But they are at peace.”
Who among us will celebrate Christmas rightly? Who will finally lay down at the manger all power and honor, all high regard, vanity, arrogance, and self-will? Who will take their place among the lowly and let God alone be high? Who will see the glory of God in the lowliness of the child in the manger?
Looking back is not the Christian thing to do. Leave your fear, worry, and guilt behind. Look up at the one who has given you a new beginning. Through him you will forget everything else.
The coming year will have its share of fear, guilt, and hardship. But let it be, in all our fear, guilt, and hardship, a year spent with Christ. Let our new beginning with Christ be followed by a story of going with Christ. What that means is beginning each day with him. That is what matters.
In the face of terrible human catastrophes, Christians are not to assume the arrogant, know-all attitude of looking on and judging, but rather are to recognize: this is my world in which this has happened.
Whatever happens to them is meant for me too; they are only showing me God’s finger pointed in anger, pointed at me as well. So let us repent and realize our guilt and not judge.
Our burden is not taken away. Jesus, who himself carried his cross, knows it is part of being human to carry our cross, to shoulder our burden, and that only with our burden and not without it will we be sanctified. The burden that God has laid on someone’s shoulders, Jesus will not take away. But he lightens our load by showing us how better to carry it. “Take
A church may have great faith—the most orthodox beliefs, the firmest loyalty to its confession—but if it is not even more a church of pure and all-embracing love, it is good for nothing.
All philosophy of life has to give an answer to the question which presents itself everywhere in the world: what is the meaning of weakness in this world, what is the meaning of physical or mental or moral weakness?
We suffer: God suffers much more. Our God is a suffering God. Suffering conforms humanity to God. The suffering person is in the likeness of God. “My strength is made perfect in weakness” says God.
the one honest answer to this question is that we basically do not want to believe.
What is true is that in all these despairing and strained efforts to believe, what we really wanted was not to believe. That is, we didn’t want that which is the first requirement of faith, namely, to surrender ourselves totally, not to think of ourselves anymore, to extinguish completely our need for recognition and recognize God alone, to put our trust and dare to believe in God alone. We would surrender what was uncomfortable to us, but not that which we cared about! To have faith means to trust and to dare unconditionally, and that we didn’t want; we wanted to set conditions, and thereby
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You need not worry about your own rights, since they are already taken care of with God—you may forgive without end!
The one who is evil knows that he must serve God and thus loves God for the sake of God’s power; although the one who is evil does not himself have that power, he still is driven by the one urge to gain power over God.
Does God love our enemies less, having come for them, suffered for them, died for them as well as for us? The cross is not the private property of any human being, but it belongs to all human beings; it is valid for all human beings.
God suffers for their sake, experiences misery and pain for their sake; the Father has given his dear Son for them. Everything depends on this: that whenever we meet an enemy, we immediately think: this is someone whom God loves; God has given everything for this person.
Remember that you as well were God’s enemy and mercy has happened to you without your merit or deserving. Second, that means: Remember that God also went to the cross for your enemy and loves your enemy as dearly as you.
Therefore, for the sake of the other and for the sake of your responsibility for the other—do not repay anyone evil for evil. Has God ever repaid you in such a way?
