Wishing you a deeply meaningful Advent season. For your Advent reflections I highly recommend Dietrich Bonhoeffers God is in the Manger. Here are a couple of samples to whet your appetite: “The Advent season is a season of waiting. Jesus stands at the door knocking (Revelation 3:20). In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness, and great blessedness, of the Advent message. Christ is standing at the door. He lives in the form of a human being among us. Do you want to close the door, or open it? It may strike us as strange to see Christ in such a near face; but he said it. And those who withdraw from the serious reality of the Advent message cannot talk of the coming of Christ in their heart, either. Christ is knocking. It’s still not Christmas, but it’s also still not the last great Advent, the last coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our lives that we celebrate runs the longing for the last Advent, when the words will be, “See I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). The Advent season is a season of waiting. But our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. We can, and should also, celebrate Christmas despite the ruins around us… We must do all this, even more intensively, because we do not know how much longer we have.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Nov 29, 1943, written from Tegel military prison) “For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls, from which they shy away. These are the manger, and the cross of Jesus Christ. No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly. Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied, he sends away empty. Before Mary the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God and lowliness, the powerful come to naught. They have no right, no hope, they are judged. Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism, beside the manger. Whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high, whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, meditation on Luke 1:46-55)
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 16:41:04 +0000
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