The Crossroads Publishing edition is a feast for the eyes: see for yourself at AMAZON.COM,* this coffee-table gem is filled with Bonhoeffer's observations of living the Christian life under persecution, and the scriptural passages he used for Advent services. Great for waiting areas, kids appreciate the colorful Christmas pictures, and geezers are sure to appreciate the heavy font! Together, they fill each page with a gentle mysticism that continues to move modern believers.
the last known homepage of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Society
The Mystery of Holy Night
"I don't have to tell you how greatly I long for freedom, and for all of you. But for decades you gave us such incomparably beautiful Christmases that my grateful memory of them is strong enough to outshine even this rather dark one. It is times like these that show what it really means to have a past and an inner legacy independent of the change of times and conditions. The awareness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that lasts for decades gives one a strong sense of security in the face of all transitory distress . . .
"From the Christian point of view, spending Christmas in a prison doesn't pose any special problem. Most likely, a more meaningful and authentic Christmas is celebrated here by many people than in places where only the name of the feast remains. Misery, pain, poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt have an altogether different meaning in God's eyes than in the judgment of men. God turns toward the very places from which humans tend to turn away. Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him at the inn: A prisoner can understand all this better than other people. It's truly good news for him; in believing it, he knows he has been made a part of the Christian community that breaks down all spatial and temporal frontiers, and the walls of prison lose their meaning."
Luke 1, 46-55
A Woman's Passionate Song
The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, and one might even say, the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung.
Celebrating Advent Means Knowing How to Wait
Mary, grasped and seized by the Spirit, speaks of God's coming into the world, of the advent of Jesus Christ. For she knows better than anyone what it means to wait for Christ.
Where God Wants to Be
Where the understanding is outraged, where human nature rebels, where our piety keeps a nervous distance: there, precisely there, God loves to be; there he baffles the wisdom of the wise; there he vexes our nature, our religious instincts. There he wants to be, and no one can prevent Him.
A Christian's life does not consist in words, but in experience. No one is a Christian without experience. That doesn't mean "life experience," but the experience of God.
We have to become clear in the presence of the manger in the stable of Bethlehem how we want to think, from this point on, about what is high and low in human life.
So long as there are men and women, Christ walks the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls on you, speaks to you, and makes demands on you. That is the most serious and most blessed thing about the Advent message. Christ lives in the shape of the person in our midst.
Joy lives in silence and on incomprehensibility.
God is not ashamed of human lowliness. He enters right into it. He chooses a human being to be his instrument and works his wonders where they are least expected.
Where else are we to seek mercy for all our betrayals, all our weak faith, all our failures, but in the lowliness of God in the manger?
Those Who Go to the Manger Will Be Transformed
If God chooses Mary as his instrument, if God himself wants to come into this world in the manger at Bethlehem, that is no idyllic family affair, but the beginning of a complete turnaround, a reordering of everything on the earth. If we wish to take part in this Advent and Christmas event, then we cannot simply be bystanders or onlookers, as if we were at the theater, enjoying all the cheerful images. No, we ourselves are swept up into the action there, into this conversion of all things.
Manger and Cross
For the might ones, for the great ones of this world, there are only two places where their courage deserts them, which they fear in the depths of their souls, which they dodge and avoid: the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ.
Celebrating Christmas
Who among us will celebrate Christmas right? Those who finally lay down all their power, honor, and prestige, all their vanity, pride, and self-will at the manger, those who stand by the lowly and let God alone be exalted, those who see in the child in the manger the glory of God precisely in this lowliness. Those who say, along with Mary, "The Lord has regarded my low estate. My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."
If in Jesus Christ God stakes out a claim in the world - even if only a stable, because "there was no room at the inn" - then at a stroke he unites in this narrow space the whole reality of the world and reveals its true foundation.
Jesus Christ is the love of God become human for all men and women, and hence he is not a preacher of abstract ideologies, but the concrete executor of the love of God.
Today, who can manage to wait, to live in the future as if it were the present, to live on God as if he were more certain than our own lives? Only those who know that the God who will come has long since come before.
In the birth of Jesus Christ God took on humanity, not just a single man.
If God has loved the world, the whole of fallen creation, then he gave us no preference over the others. He has loved my worst enemy no less than myself.
Where there is still hope, there is no defeat.
With God dwells joy, and down from God it comes, seizing mind, soul, and body; and where this joy has grasped a human being it spreads, it carries away, it bursts through closed doors.
If the earth has been found worthy to bear the human being Jesus Christ, if a person like Jesus has lived, then and only then does our human life make sense.
The joy of God has passed through the poverty of the manger and the torment of the cross; and so it is unconquerable, irrefutable.
The shepherds, like the wise men from the East, stand at the manger, not as "converted sinners,' but simply because, just as they are, they have been drawn by the manger.
Isiah 9, 6-7
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The Lord of the Ages is God
When the prophet speaks these words, the time of the fulfillment is 700 years away. But so deeply is the prophet immersed in God's thoughts and decisions that he speaks of what is to come as though he has seen it already, that he speaks of the saving hour, as if heas already stood in worship at the manger of Jesus. "Unto us a child is born."
The Turning Around of All Things
We are talking about the birth of a child, not the revolutionary act of a strong man, not the breathtaking discovery of a sage, not the pious acting of a saint.
Everything Past and Everything Future
As if to shame the mightiest human efforts and achievements, a child is placed at the center of history. A child, born of humans: a son, given by God.
The Moment of Fulfillment
How do we wish to meet this child? Have our hands become too hard and proud from daily work to fold themselves in adoration at the sight of this child? Do we carry our head, which has had to think so many heavy thoughts and to solve so many problems, too high for us to bow it humbly before the wonder of the child?
God is a God of Bearing
"And the government shall be upon his shoulder." The government of the world is supposed to lie on the weak shoulders of the newborn child! One thing we know: These shoulders will in any event get to carry the burden of the entire world.
Out of love for humans God becomes human.
The reason for God's love of man or woman lies not in man or woman, but only in God himself.
God is closer to us than the past.
God's paths are the paths that he himself has taken and that we now are to take with him.
Had Jesus not lived, our life, in spite of all the other people whom we know, admire, and love, would be meaningless.
A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery.
Grateful as we are for all personal joys, not for a moment may we lose sight of the great things for the sake of which we are alive.
God doesn't want dead Christians, but Christians who live unto their Lord. Unless we hear this word, Christmas will have passed us by.
The world can be renewed only from the impossible; this impossible is God's blessing.
One Single Name
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God,
my Savior, for he has regarded
the low estate of his handmaiden.
For behold, henceforth all generations
Will call me blessed;
For he who is mighty
Has done great things for me,
And holy is his name.
And his mercy is on those who fear him,
From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm,
He has scattered the proud
In the imagination of their hearts,
He has put down the mighty
From their thrones,
And exalted those of low degree.
He has filled the hungry
With good things,
And the rich he has sent empty away.
He has helped his servant Israel,
In remembrance of His mercy,
As he spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham
And to his posterity for ever."
This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is, instead, a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. These are the tones of the women prophets of the Old Testament that now come to life in Mary's mouth.
She waits for him in a way unlike anyone else. She awaits him as his mother. She knows about the mystery of his coming, about the Spirit that is at play here, about the almighty God who works his wonders.
She experiences in her own body that God's ways with humans are wonderful, that he isn't bound by human standards, that he doesn't follow the path that humans like to lay out for him - that his way is beyond all understanding, free, and with a mind of its own.
Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and grand, that he works wonders where man loses heart, that he makes splendid what is slight and lowly. Indeed, this is the wonder of wonders, that God loves the lowly.
"God has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden." God in lowliness - that is the revolutionary, the passionate word of Advent.
We have to play our part too on this stage, for the spectator is already an actor. We cannot withdraw.
What part, the, do we play? Pious shepherds, on bended knee? Kings who come bearing gifts? What sort of play is this, where Mary becomes the mother of God? Where God enters the world in the lowliness of the manger?
The judgment of the world and its redemption - that is taking place here. And the Christ child in the manger is himself the one who prounounces the judgment and redemption of the world. He repels the great and the powerful. He puts down the might from their thrones, he humbles the arrogant, his arm overpowers all the proud and the strong, he raises what is lowly and makes it great and splendid in his compassion.
Therefore we cannot approach his manger as if it were the cradle of any other child. Those who wish to come to his manger find that something is happening within them.
Of the increase of his government and of peace, there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with judgment and with justice from this time forth and even for evermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
We who don't know what will happen next year, how are we to understand someone looking out over the centuries? This voice of a single person, gently ringing down through the ages joined now and then by another isolated voice of prophecy, chimes in at last with the shepherds' midnight adorations and cries out in jubilation: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given."
It really passes all understanding: The birth of a child is to bring the great turning around of all things, is to bring salvation and redemption to the whole human race.
What kings and statesmen, philosophers and artists, founders of all religions and moral teachers vainly strive for, now comes about through a newborn child.
That is the mystery of the world's redemption. Everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of almighty God comes to us, condescends to us in the form of a child, his son. That this child has been born for us, that this son has been given, that this human child, this son of God, belongs to me; that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine - my very life depends entirely on these things. A child has our life in his hand.
Can we one more time forget entirely all our strivings, accomplishments, and importance, to join the shepherds and the sages from the East and offer childlike adoration to the divine child in the manger? To take, like old Simeon, this child in our arms and instantly acknowledge with gratitude the fulfillment of our entire life?
It is truly a strange sight when a strong, proud man bends his knee before this child, when with a simple heart he finds and reveres in him his Savior. And our old, clever, experienced, self-assured world must no doubt shake its head, or perhaps even laugh with contempt, when it hears the cry of salvation from believing Christians, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given."
With the cross, all the sin and distress of this world will be loaded onto these shoulders. But the government will consist, not in the bearer's breaking down under the burden, but in his bringing it to the goal. The government that lies on the shoulders of the child in the manger consists in the patient bearing of humans and their guilt.
This bearing, however, begins in the manger, begins where the eternal word of God took on and bore human flesh. Precisely in the lowliness and weakness of the child, the government of all the world has its beginning.
Wonderful Counselor
"Wonderful Counselor" is the name of this child. But because this child of God is God's own Wonderful Counselor, he himself is a fountain of all wonders all counsel. For those who recognize in Jesus the wonder of the Son of God his every word and deed becomes a wonder; they will find in him the last, deepest, most helpful counsel for all their trials and troubles.
Mighty God
"Mighty God" is the name of this child. The child in the manger is none other than God himself. Nothing greater could be said: God became a child.
Everlasting Father
"Everlasting Father" - How can this be the name of the child? This child wants nothing for himself; he is no wunderkind in the human sense, but an obedient child of his heavenly Father. Born in time, he brings eternity with him to earth.
Prince of Peace
"Prince of Peace" - Where God comes in love to humans, unites himself with them, peace is made between God and human being and between human being and human being.
Implied in One Name
"Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" - That is how we speak at the manger in Bethlehem. Our words rush out at the sight of the divine child; we try to put into language what is implied in the one name: Jesus.
Peace and Justice
A kingdom of peace and justice,
God is love.
The fact that we are allowed to live as real human beings and to love the real person beside us, is founded solely on the incarnation of God, on the unfathomable love of God for humankind.
Faithfully and quietly surrounded by benevolent powers,
Still will the past torment our hearts
And if you pass to us the heavy, the bitter
But if you wish us to rejoice once more
with warmth and light let flame today the candles
When the silence spreads around us deeply,
Warmly protected by benevolent powers,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Go to the child in the manger, believe in him the Son of God and you will find in him wonder upon wonder, counsel upon counsel.
He lies in the manger, poor like us, wretched and helpless like us, wretched and helpless like us, a human of flesh and blood like us, a human of flesh and blood like us, our brother.
And yet he is God, yet he is strength. Where is the divinity, where is the strength of this child? In the divine love, in which he became just like us. His poverty in the manger is his strength. His poverty is his strength. In the strength of love he overcomes the chasm between God and humanity.
As the Son of God he brings us all the love of the Father in heaven. Go there, seek and find at the manger the eternal Father, who here has become your dear Father too.
If you are afraid of God's anger, go to the child in the manger, and get the peace of God as a gift.
Have you fallen into strife and hatred with your brother, come and see how, purely from love, God has become our brother and wants to reconcile us, one with another.
Out in the world power rules. This child is the prince of peace. Where he is, peace rules.
But at bottom these words are nothing except a wordless silence of adoration before the ineffable, before the presence of God in the shape of a human child.
the unfulfilled long of humankind,
has dawned with the birth of the divine child.
We are called to this kingdom.
We can find it
if we accept the word and sacrament of the Lord Jesus Christ
in the church, in the community of the faithful,
and submit to his rule,
If we acknowledge our Savior and Redeemer
in the child in the manger
and let him give us the gift of a new life in love.
"From now on" means that from the birth of Jesus,
"until eternity," this kingdom will endure.
Who guarantees
That it will be not shattered and go under
amidst the storms of world history
like all other kingdoms?
"The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this."
The holy zeal of God for his cause guarantees
that this kingdom will last to all eterntity
and will come to its last fulfillment,
In spite of all human guild, in spite of all resistance.
That means that the beginning and the end of human life are sheltered in God's hands.
wonderfully guarded and consoled,
- thus will I live this day with you
and go forth with you into another year.
still, heavy burdens of bad times depress us,
ah, Lord, give our startled souls
the grace for which we were created.
cup of pain, filled to the brim,
we will accept it, grateful, without trembling
from your good and beloved hand.
in this world and the brilliance of its sun,
then the past, too, we will remember,
and so our entire life will belong to you
that you have brought into our darkness.
If it can be, bring us together once again!
We know your light is shining in the night.
let us hear that full sound of the world
stretching out invisibly around us;
let us hear your children's praising song.
with confidence we wait for what may come.
God is with us at evening and at morning
and most certainly at each new day.