Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons

Edwin H. Robertson

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780310861669
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

"The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!" —Dietrich Bonhoeffer Executed by the Nazis for his complicity in a plot to assassinate Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer remains with us today through his writings—far-reaching ripples of deep thought, passionate words, and unflinching character. Including biographical insights, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons spans Bonhoeffer's seventeen years as a preacher. This collection of vintage sermons and writings searches out the power and mystery of the Christmas season: its joyous riches and its implications for our lives. Also available Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Prison Poems Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditations on Psalms

War—Conspiracy—
Prison—Death

1939–1945

AS WAR GATHERED OVER EUROPE LIKE A STORM, friends of Dietrich Bonhoeffer feared for his safety and sought to rescue him. They arranged lecture tours in America. Bonhoeffer went, but soon realized he was mistaken. If war came, he reasoned, a Christian in Germany would be faced with a dilemma. If he prayed for the victory of Germany, he was praying for the destruction of civilization. The awful alternative would be to pray for the defeat of his country that civilization might survive. This dilemma, he faced, but he could not do that in the safety of America. He returned to Germany and joined with those who were seeking the overthrow of the Nazi regime. Several professional soldiers had assured him that once the war started, Hitler would easily be defeated because he had no experience of directing a war. Then would be the chance to replace the hated regime with one which their erstwhile enemies would respect and deal with honorably. All this was shattered by the extraordinary success of the German advance in Europe. The turning point came when Paris fell, on June 17, 1940. Bethge reports the way in which Bonhoeffer received the news. They were in Memel together enjoying the sunshine in an open-air café when the loudspeaker announced the fall of Paris and all began to rejoice and raise their arms shouting, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.” To his surprise, Bethge saw Bonhoeffer raising his arm like the rest, and then saying to Bethge, “Raise your arm! Are you crazy?” and later added, “We shall have to run risks for very different things now, but not for that salute!” Bethge comments, “It was then that Bonhoeffer’s double life began: the involvement as a pastor in the political underground movement.’¹

Such an involvement was foreign to the whole tradition of the Lutheran Church, which recognized the distinction between the authority of the church in things spiritual and that of the state in things political, both, of course, under the authority of God. Later, in 1943, when he wrote from prison, he expressed the view that this involvement “may prevent me from taking up my ministry again later on.”²

On September 4, 1940, Bonhoeffer was forbidden to speak in public and required to report regularly to the police. He began to concentrate his work on the subject Ethics, which occupied him until his death. Life was made a great deal easier when he was appointed to the Abwehr (Military Intelligence), which was not open to the scrutiny of the Gestapo. He was appointed to the Abwehr Office in Münich and resided for some time in the Benedictine Abbey at Ettal in Bavaria. During this time, he had little to do and could devote his energies to studying Ethics. By November, he began his overseas visits on behalf of the Abwehr—first to Switzerland and most memorably to Sweden in 1942. The Swiss visit which lasted four weeks brought him again into contact with the World Council of Churches (in process of formation). In Sweden, he met George Bell to discuss a project for the overthrow of the Nazi regime by a group of high-ranking officers and leaders in church and state. It was a request to the British Government to respect any alternative government in Germany that might be formed after the fall of the Nazis. They asked for a sign that there would not be another Versailles, or “unconditional surrender,” but a negotiated peace. The request was rejected and the war went on for another three years.

There was great difficulty in getting any precise charge against Bonhoeffer, but he was arrested on April 5, 1943 and remained a prisoner until his death in 1945. He was hanged in Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945.

Before his arrest he wrote and circulated an assessment of the ten years that Hitler had been in power, called, “After Ten Years.”³ Once in prison, he wrote letters—largely to Eberhard Bethge, but also to family and to his fiancée, Maria von Wedemeyer. Our main source of material during this period comes from the unfinished manuscript on Ethics, the circular, “After Ten Years,” and his Letters and Papers from Prison—letters, a sketch for a novel, the beginning of a drama, and ten poems.

In view of the times, the Advent theme is never far away. But this section begins with a sermon, dated Christmas 1940, on the Advent text, Isaiah 9:5–6. As Bonhoeffer had already been forbidden to speak publicly, this was obviously a written sermon, presumably circulated. That Christmas he wrote personally to a hundred colleagues and Finkenwalde students, many of whom were now serving in the army. With his message to them and his greetings, he enclosed a reproduction of Altdorfer’s Holy Family in the Ruined House.

Christmas 1940
The Government Upon the
Shoulders of the Child

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.

Isaiah 9:6–7

Amidst disastrous words and signs, which declare the divine anger and terrible punishment for the defeated and near destroyed people; amidst the guilt and distress of the people of God, a voice is heard, gentle and mysterious, but full of blessed confidence, announcing deliverance through the birth of the divine child. It will not be fulfilled for seven hundred years yet. But so deeply is the prophet immersed in the thoughts and decisions of God that he speaks of the future as he sees it already; the child in the manger, Jesus, and he announces the hour of deliverance: “For to us a child is born.” What one day will be is already there in the sight of God, sure and certain. It is not only something that one day will happen—deliverance for future generations—but already for the prophet himself and for his generation, yes, for all generations: “For to us a child is born.” No human person can speak like that on his own.

We who do not know what will happen next year, how can we comprehend how anyone could see out over hundreds of years? And the times were no less certain then than they are today. Only the Spirit of God, who encompasses the beginning and the end of the world, can in this way reveal the secret of the future to his chosen person. Such prophecy is to strengthen believers and to warn unbelievers. This voice of an individual which rings through the centuries, softly at first, is here and there joined by the voices of other prophets and is heard today in the nightly prayers of the pastor and the joyful celebrations of the believing congregation of Christians: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.”

This is about the birth of a child, not of the astonishing work of a strong man, not of the bold discovery of a wise man, not of the pious work of a saint. It really is beyond all understanding: the birth of a child shall bring about the great change, shall bring to all mankind salvation and deliverance. What kings and statesmen, philosophers and artists, religious leaders and moral teachers have labored for in vain is now brought about by a newborn child. Here a child, born into the midst of world history, has put to shame the wisdom and efforts of the strong. A child, born of a human mother, a Son given by God. That is the secret of the salvation of the world. All the past and all the future is here encompassed. The unending comfort of the Almighty God comes to us, humbly and in the form of a child, his Son. That this child is born, for us, given for us, that this human child, God’s Son, belongs to me, that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine, means that now my life depends only on him. A child has our life in his hands.

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 to be thought through and problems to be solved, that we cannot bow our head in humility before 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? Can we not be like the aged Simeon, who took the child in his arms and saw the fulfillment of all his waiting, and in this moment recognize the fulfillment of our whole life? It is truly a strangely moving sight when a strong, proud man bows the knee before the child, and with childlike heart finds and honors this divine child as his savior. Certainly, it must blow the mind, perhaps give rise to wicked laughter, when there is heard in this old, clever, experienced world of ours, so sure of its knowledge, this proclamation of salvation by Christian believers: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.” That the government of all the world should lie upon the weak shoulders of this newborn child! This one thing we know: These shoulders will one day bear the weight of the whole world. With the cross, all the sin and the sorrow of this world will be laden upon these shoulders. But his authority will remain, he will not break under the burden, but bring it through triumphantly. The government which lies upon the shoulders of the child in the manger consists of the patient bearing of humanity’s burden and its guilt. The bearing of this burden begins in the manger, begins there where the eternal Word of God took to himself human flesh and bore it. Precisely in the lowliness and weakness of the child is the beginning of his taking the government of all the world upon him. The head of the house indicates his government over the house by the key which he hangs over his shoulder. That shows that he has the authority to open or shut the door, to let people in or to show them out, as he will. And that is also the way that the cross over his shoulder shows his authority as governor. He opens to those whose sins he forgives, and he shuts out the proud. That is the nature of this child’s government, that he receives the humble, the lowly and sinners, bearing their burden, but he rejects and brings to nothing the proud, the high and mighty, the self-righteous.

Who is this child, of whom the prophets speak and at whose birth heaven and earth rejoice? It is only with stammering tongues that we can speak his name or seek to describe what is embraced by this name. Words limp and stumble when they attempt to say who this child is. Yes, when human lips try to express the name of this child, strange word-pictures emerge, which we do not know: “Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace.” Every title in these words comes from unfathomable depths and taken together they try to encompass one single name: Jesus.

This child is called, “Wonderful Counselor.” In him, the wonder of all wonders has taken place. The birth of the Savior-child comes out of the eternal counsel of God. God gave us his Son in the form of a human child. God became man, the Word became flesh. That is the wonder of God’s love for us and it is the unfathomable counsel of God which wins and delivers us. And because this child of God is uniquely Wonderful Counselor, he is therefore himself also the source of all wonder and all counsel. Anyone who recognizes Jesus as the Son of God, whose every word and every deed is a wonder, will find in him the profoundest and most helpful counsel in all times of trouble and questioning. Yes, before his lips can speak, he is full of wonder and full of counsel. Go to the child in the manger and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel.

This child is called “Mighty God.” The child in the manger is none other than God himself. Nothing greater could be said: God becomes a child. In the Jesus-child of Mary dwells Almighty God. Just take that in for a moment! Don’t speak, don’t think any further! Stand quietly and wait before this statement, that God has become a child! Here, he is poor like us, wretched like us, and helpless like us, a child of flesh and blood like us, our brother. And yet he is God, almighty God. Where is the divinity, where is the power of this child? It is in the divine love by which he becomes like us. His pitiable condition in the manger is his power. In the power of love, he overcomes the chasm between God and man, powerfully overcoming sin and death, he forgives sin and raises from the dead. Kneel low before this pitiable manger, before this child of poor people and speak in faith with stammering tongue, the words of the prophets, “Almighty God,” and he will be your God and your power.

“Everlasting Father”—how can this be the name of the child? Only if the everlasting fatherly love of God is revealed in this child and that this child will do nothing other than bring the love of the Father to the earth. In this way, the Father and the Son are one, and he who sees the Son, sees the Father. This child will do nothing of himself, he is not a wonder child in the human sense, but an obedient child of his heavenly Father. At the time of his birth he brought eternity to earth. As Son of God he brings to us all the love of the heavenly Father. Go then to the manger, to seek and find the everlasting Father, who has now become also your loving Father.

“Prince of Peace”—Where God comes to people in love to join with them, peace is established between God and humankind, and also among ourselves, person to person. If you are afraid of the wrath of God, go to the child in the manger and let him give you the peace of God. If you are in strife and hatred with your neighbor, come and see how God, out of his great love, has dealt with your neighbor and will reconcile you both. In the world, power rules. This child is the Prince of Peace. Where he is, peace rules!

“Wonderful Counselor,” “Mighty God,” “Everlasting Father,” “Prince of Peace.” This is what we say at the manger in Bethlehem. Our words are confirmed by a glance at the divine child. We try to grasp in phrases what is contained for us in this name: Jesus. Basically, these words are no more than the unspoken silence of a worshiper in face of the inexpressible reaction to the presence of God in the form of a human child.

We have heard of the birth and the names of the divine child. Now finally we hear something about his kingdom (v. 7). The government of this poor child will be great. It will encompass the whole earth. All generations until the end of time will serve him whether they know it or not. His will be a rule over the hearts of all humankind. Thrones and great kingdoms will be strengthened or broken by this power. The unseen, loving rule of this divine child over human hearts will be more firmly grounded than the visible and shining might of earthly lords. And ultimately all governments on earth must serve the rule of Jesus Christ over all humankind. Despite all the hostility against it, this government will become greater and more firmly based. With the birth of Jesus the great kingdom of peace has broken in. Is it not a wonder that when Jesus has become Lord over all humankind, then peace rules? Is it not a wonder that the whole earth becoming Christian means that peace is in the midst of the world? Only when one does not allow Jesus to rule, then obstinacy, defiance, and hatred express themselves continuously and there can be no peace. Jesus will not establish his government of peace by force, but only when people submit to him freely, and allow him to rule over them. Then he gives to them his wonderful peace. When today, once again, Christian people are torn apart by war and hate, yes, when even Christian churches cannot come together, that is not the fault of Jesus Christ, but the fault of people who will not allow Jesus to rule over them. This does not mean that the promise is not fulfilled. Peace will have no end when the divine child rules over us.

Jesus Christ “will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom” (v. 7). It is no longer a worldly throne, nor a worldly kingdom, as it once was. But a spiritual throne and a spiritual kingdom. Where is the throne and kingdom of Jesus? It is present there with his Word and sacrament, ruling and governing, in the Church and among his worshipers. In his kingdom, Jesus rules “with justice and righteousness.” His justice does not leave unscathed the congregation of believers. No! Precisely on them he executes his strongest judgment and those who ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Barcelona
• The American Year
• Berlin
• Berlin
• London
• Finkenwalde: The Preacher’s Seminary
• The Collective Pastorates
• War—Conspiracy—Prison—Death
• Notes and Sources
• About the Publisher