Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Christmas Sermons

by Editor and Translator Edwin Robertson

• ISBN13: 9780310259558
• ISBN10: 031025955X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-30
• Publisher: Harpercollins Christian Pub

Summary

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life was, in a sense, the embodiment of Advent. Few figures in the twentieth century had such influence on the church. Few moved with such determination, searched their own soul so vigorously through the lens of Scripture, or spoke and wrote with such eloquence. Yet at the center of Bonhoeffer's activity was an attitude of expectant waiting, of longing and looking for Christ to come in greater measure to the church and to Bonhoeffer's own heart.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. 9
Introduction	p. 11
Barcelona March 1928-February 1929	p. 17
The American Year 1929-1930	p. 29
Berlin October 1931-July 1933	p. 41
Berlin 1932-1933	p. 61
London 1933-1935	p. 83
Finkenwalde: The Preacher's Seminary 1935-1937	p. 105
The Collective Pastorates 1938-1940	p. 125
War-Conspiracy-Prison-Death 1939-1945	p. 145
Notes and Sources	p. 183
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons
Copyright © 2005 by Edwin Robertson
Previously published in the UK as I Stand at the Door
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 1906-1945.
[Sermons. English. Selections]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas sermons / editor and translator, Edwin
Robertson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25955-8
ISBN-10: 0-310-25955-X
1. Advent sermons. 2. Christmas sermons. 3. Sermons, German—
Translations into English. I. Title: Christmas sermons. II. Title.
BV4254.5.B68 2005
252'.61—dc22
2005017160
This edition printed on acid-free paper.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible:
New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International
Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed
reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 10 /?DCI/ 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Barcelona
March 1928—February 1929
ON FEBRUARY 15, 1928, Bonhoeffer was appointed assistant
pastor to the German-speaking congregation in
Barcelona. He left the children reluctantly, but looked
forward to the opportunity of regular preaching. He had
become very close to the children. In his diary in
Barcelona he wrote:
On January 21, 1928 we had our last children’s service.
I spoke on the man sick with palsy, and particularly
on the saying, “Your sins are forgiven you,” and
tried yet again to reveal the kernel of our gospel to the
children. They were attentive and perhaps affected a
little . . . For some time, the congregational prayer has
often sent cold shivers down my spine, but when the
throng of children with whom I have spent two years
prayed for me, the effect was incomparably greater.
The Parish in Barcelona
Bonhoeffer suffered a culture shock when he began to
meet the people of his first parish. He was the assistant
minister, under Dr. Olbricht. This senior minister was
well liked by his congregation, whom he did not trouble
much apart from Sunday services and pastoral visits. He
enjoyed their privileged company. It was left to the young
assistant to start Sunday school work and even weeknight
meetings for lectures. The shock was to discover
the complacency of these businessmen and even their
children. In a letter to his grandmother in June, contrasting
the youth of Berlin with the youth of Barcelona’s
German community, he wrote:
They know little or nothing of the war, revolution,
and the painful aftermath of these things, they live
well and comfortably, the weather is always fine—
how could it be otherwise? The Youth Movement
period in Germany passed by without a trace here.
All the young people seemed to assume that they
would continue in their fathers’ businesses and took this
comfortable way of life for granted. The restless young
pastor was soon stirring things up—not always to the
approval of his senior. But it was preaching that concerned
Bonhoeffer most. He had to get to know the
country, the people, their problems, and their needs. He
found himself spending a great deal of time preparing his
sermons and writing them out in full.
“Writing sermons still takes up a great deal of my
time,” he wrote to his parents, “I work on them the
entire week, devoting some time to them every day.” Still,
he was always pleased when the minister turned the pulpit
over to him. “On the first Sunday in Advent I shall
be able to preach again because Olbricht will not be
returning until the following week, and I am very pleased
about that.”
This is the sermon with which the present collection
begins.
December 2, 1928
Advent Sunday
“I stand at the door and knock” (Revelation 3:20).
Celebrating Advent means learning how to wait. Waiting
is an art which our impatient age has forgotten. We
want to pluck the fruit before it has had time to ripen.
Greedy eyes are soon disappointed when what they saw
as luscious fruit is sour to the taste. In disappointment
and disgust they throw it away. The fruit, full of promise
rots on the ground. It is rejected without thanks by
disappointed hands.
The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot
wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They
want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and
miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking
with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They
lose the moment when the answers are revealed in dazzling
clarity.
Who has not felt the anxieties of waiting for the declaration
of friendship or love? The greatest, the deepest,
the most tender experiences in all the world demand
patient waiting. This waiting is not in emotional turmoil,
but gently growing, like the emergence of spring, like
God’s laws, like the germinating of a seed.
Not all can wait—certainly not those who are satisfied,
contented, and feel that they live in the best of all
possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy
about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of
greatness in the world of the future and are patiently
expecting its fulfillment. The celebration of Advent is
possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who
know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and 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!
In a few weeks we shall hear that cry of triumph. But
already we can hear in the distance the sound of the
angels’ song praising God and promising peace on earth.
But, not so quick! It is still in the distance. It calls us to
learn to wait and to wait aright.
When once again Christmas comes and we hear the
familiar carols and sing the Christmas hymns, something
happens to us, and a special kind of warmth slowly encircles
us. The hardest heart is softened. We recall our own
childhood. We feel again how we then felt, especially if
we were separated from a mother. A kind of homesickness
comes over us for past times, distant places, and yes,
a blessed longing for a world without violence or hardness
of heart. But there is something more—a longing
for the safe lodging of the everlasting Father. And that
leads our thoughts to the curse of homelessness which
hangs heavily over the world. In every land, the endless
wandering without purpose or destination. Looking
beyond our own comfort

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Excerpted from Christmas Sermons by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edwin Robertson
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