God is in the Manger Quotes

“Ascension joy—inwardly we must become very quiet to hear the soft sound of this phrase at all. Joy lives in its quietness and incomprehensibility. This joy is in fact incomprehensible, for the comprehensible never makes for joy.1 Dietrich Bonhoeffer”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting—that is, of hopefully doing without—will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“To grasp the old faithfulness of God anew every morning, to be able—in the middle of life—to begin a new life with God daily, that is the gift that God gives with every new morning….”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Is it not a miracle that where Jesus has really become Lord over people, peace reigns?”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“With the birth of Jesus, the great kingdom of peace has begun.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“I used to be very fond of thinking up and buying presents, but now that we have nothing to give, the gift God gave us in the birth of Christ will seem all the more glorious; the emptier our hands, the better we understand what Luther meant by his dying words: “We’re beggars; it’s true.” The poorer our quarters, the more clearly we perceive that our hearts should be Christ’s home on earth. (Letter to fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer, December 1, 1943)”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“To those who recognize in Jesus the wonder of the Son of God, every one of his words and deeds becomes a wonder; they find in him the last, most profound, most helpful counsel for all needs and questions. Yes, before the child can open his lips, he is full of wonder and full of counsel. Go to the child in the manger. Believe him to be the Son of God, and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Repentance means turning away from one’s own work to the mercy of God. The whole Bible calls to us and cheers us: Turn back, turn back! Return—where to? To the everlasting grace of God, who does not leave us…. God will be merciful—so come, judgment day! Lord Jesus, make us ready. We rejoice. Amen.7 Bonhoeffer’s sermon for Repentance Sunday, November 19, 1933”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love…. God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be—in our sin, suffering, and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us.6 “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Twenty centuries later, Jesus speaks pointedly to the preening ascetic trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, to those of us caught up in boasting about our victories in the vineyard, to those of us fretting and flapping about our human weaknesses and character defects. The child doesn’t have to struggle to get himself in a good position for having a relationship with God; he doesn’t have to craft ingenious ways of explaining his position to Jesus; he doesn’t have to create a pretty face for himself; he doesn’t have to achieve any state of spiritual feeling or intellectual understanding. All he has to do is happily accept the cookies, the gift of the kingdom.4”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Today is Remembrance sunday. Will you have a memorial service for B. Riemer? It would be nice, but difficult. Then comes Advent, with all its happy memories for us. It was you who really opened up to me the world of music-making that we have carried on during the weeks of Advent. Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent: one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—things that are really of no consequence—the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.6 Letter from Bonhoeffer at Tegel prison to Eberhard Bethge, November 21, 1943”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“A shaking of heads, perhaps even an evil laugh, must go through our old, smart, experienced, self-assured world, when it hears the call of salvation of believing Christians: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us.”5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“The more I begin to love the commandments of God in creation and word, the more present they will be for me in every hour.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Jesus does not want to be the only perfect human being at the expense of humankind. He does not want, as the only guiltless one, to ignore a humanity that is being destroyed by its guilt; he does not want some kind of human ideal to triumph over the ruins of a wrecked humanity.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Go to the child in the manger. Believe him to be the Son of God, and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“And we can pray only when we realize that we cannot do anything, that we have reached our limit, that someone else must make that new beginning.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Therefore, people cannot make a new beginning at all; they can only pray for one. Where people are on their own and live by their own devices, there is only the old, the past.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“They believe that a good intention already means a new beginning; they believe that on their own they can make a new start whenever they want. But that is an evil illusion: only God can make a new beginning with people whenever God pleases, but not people with God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on—how many such “from-now-ons” have there already been!—to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” This saying, which is found in a broad variety of lands, does not arise from the brash worldly wisdom of an incorrigible. It instead reveals deep Christian insight.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Are you afraid of God’s wrath? Then go to the child in the manger and receive there the peace of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Ultimately all authority on earth must serve only the authority of Jesus Christ over humankind.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“The authority of this poor child will grow (Isa. 9:7). It will encompass all the earth, and knowingly or unknowingly, all human generations until the end of the ages will have to serve it.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“We cannot approach the manger of the Christ child in the same way we approach the cradle of another child. Rather, when we go to his manger, something happens, and we cannot leave it again unless we have been judged or redeemed. Here we must either collapse or know the mercy of God directed toward us.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“How shall we deal with such a child? Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?4 “The Government upon the Shoulders of the Child,” Christmas 1940”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“I have had the experience over and over again that the quieter it is around me, the clearer do I feel the connection to you. It is as though in solitude the soul develops senses which we hardly know in everyday life. Therefore I have not felt lonely or abandoned for one moment. You, the parents, all of you, the friends and students of mine at the front, all are constantly present to me…. Therefore you must not think me unhappy. What is happiness and unhappiness? It depends so little on the circumstances; it depends really only on that which happens inside a person.8 Bonhoeffer’s final Christmastime letter to fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer, December 19, 1944”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“If we want to participate in this Advent and Christmas event, we cannot simply sit there like spectators in a theater and enjoy all the friendly pictures. Rather, we must join in the action that is taking place and be drawn into this reversal of all things ourselves. Here we too must act on the stage, for here the spectator is always a person acting in the drama. We cannot remove ourselves from the action.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Come now, let us argue it out,      says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet,       they shall be like snow; though they are red like crimson,      they shall become like wool. Isaiah 1:18”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Because what is at stake for Jesus is not the proclamation and realization of new ethical ideals, and thus also not his own goodness (Matt. 19:17), but solely his love for real human beings, he can enter into the communication of their guilt; he can be loaded down with their guilt…. It is his love alone that lets him become guilty. Out of his selfless love, out of his sinless nature, Jesus enters into the guilt of human beings; he takes it upon himself. A sinless nature and guilt bearing are bound together in him indissolubly. As the sinless one Jesus takes guilt upon himself, and under the burden of this guilt, he shows that he is the sinless one.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

“Only when I forgo visible proof, do I believe in God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas