OF
GOD'S LOVE
"One
thing above all: you must not think that I am letting this lonely Christmas
discourage me." Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this to his parents on December
17, 1943, from Tegel Prison in Berlin, where he had been held on charges of
conspiring against the Nazi regime. He was placed in solitary confinement in a
filthy cell, without anyone speaking to him. The letter continued: "From a
Christian perspective, spending Christmas in a prison cell cannot be a
particular problem. Many in this house will probably celebrate a more
meaningful and authentic Christmas than where only the name of this holiday
remains. A prisoner understands better than anyone else that misery, suffering,
poverty, loneliness, helplessness, and guilt have a completely different
meaning in the eyes of God than in the judgment of men; that God turns his gaze
precisely on those from whom men usually turn him away; that Christ was born in
a stable because he found no room in the inn; that He was born in a stable
because he could not find a place ... all this is truly good news for a
prisoner" (D. Bonhoeffer, Resistenza e resa , Cinisello Balsamo
[MI], Ed. Paoline, 1988, 324).
He
remained in Tegel prison for 18 months. In October 1944, he was transferred to
the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht- Straße and then, on
February 7, 1945, to the Buchenwald concentration camp. On April 9, he was
hanged in the Flossenburg extermination camp for conspiracy against the Führer.
He was 39 years old. Sensing his approaching death, he said: "It's the
end—for me, the beginning of life."
*
* *
Christmas
in Prison
In
the aforementioned letter, he stated that he wanted to remember Christmas in
prison "with a certain pride." He was referring above all to the
pride of knowing he was following Christ, born "in a stable because he
couldn't find a place in the inn." Nor was there a place in the dominant
society for D. Bonhoeffer, a pastor of the Lutheran Confession and a declared
enemy of the Nazi regime. He was rejected like Christ, and like Christ, judged
guilty. For someone like him, who had chosen Christ as the lord, center, and
ideal of his life, being "treated like a dangerous criminal,"
imprisoned and silenced, authenticated his Christian faith. This
condition—assimilation to Christ—deepened and developed in its essential
elements, constitutes the soul of his religious conception: "The man whom
God welcomes, judges, and raises to new life is Jesus Christ, and in him all
humanity: that is, us. Only the person of Jesus Christ victoriously confronts
the world. From this person, a world reconciled with God is born and takes
shape" (D. Bonhoeffer, Ethics , Milan, Bompiani, 1969, 69).
In
the birth of Jesus Christ, God humbles himself and reveals himself:
"Christ in the manger [...]. God is not ashamed of man's lowliness; he
enters into it [...]. God is close to lowliness; he loves what is lost, what is
overlooked, the insignificant, the marginalized, the weak, and the broken;
where men say 'lost,' there he says 'saved'; where men say 'no,' there he says
'yes.' Where men indifferently or haughtily turn away their gaze, there he
fixes his gaze, full of incomparable, ardent love. Where men say 'despicable,'
there God exclaims 'blessed.'" Wherever in our lives we have ended up in a
situation where we can only be ashamed before ourselves and before God, where
we think that God too should now be ashamed of us, where we feel further from God
than ever before in our life, precisely there God is close to us as he has
never been before, there he wants to break into our lives, there he makes us
feel his approach, so that we understand the miracle of his love, his closeness
and his grace» («Sermon of the 3rd Sunday of Advent», in D.
Bonhoeffer, Riconoscere Dio al centro della vita , Brescia, Queriniana ,
2004, 12 ff; hereinafter RD).
*
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Christmas
allows us to understand this miracle.
Bonhoeffer
understood this so vividly that he considered it the reality of his life. In
his cell in Tegel prison, he hung his Advent wreath on a nail and hung Lippi's
Nativity scene. Meditation on Mary and the Child in the manger filled him with
serenity; he recalled the songs sung as a family, especially these
lines: The manger shines bright and clear, / the night brings a new light, /
darkness must not enter, / faith always remains in the light ( Resistance
and Surrender , cit., 214). Then that "hole" of a prison becomes
a wide-open window onto the universe of faith, and the darkness is absorbed by
the light of a mystery not simply to be remembered, but to be celebrated.
"The
fact that God chooses Mary as his instrument, the fact that God wants to come
personally into this world in the manger of Bethlehem, is not a family idyll,
but rather the beginning of a total conversion, of a reordering of all things
on this earth. If we want to participate in this event of Advent and Christmas,
we cannot simply stand by like spectators in a theater and enjoy the beautiful
images that pass before us, but we must allow ourselves to be drawn into the
action that unfolds here, in this reversal of all things; we too must play on
this stage; here the spectator is always also an actor in the drama, and we
cannot withdraw" (RD, 14).
At
this point Bonhoeffer asks himself the meaning of the scene offered to us by
Christmas. What happens at Christmas? "The judgment of the world and the
redemption of the world: that is what happens here. And it is the Baby Jesus
himself in the manger who accomplishes the judgment and the redemption of the
world." The consequence is peremptory: "We cannot approach his manger
as we approach the cradle of another child: something happens to anyone who
wants to approach his manger, because he can only leave it again judged or
redeemed; he must collapse here or else know that God's mercy is directed
toward him" (RD, 15).
A
pagan Christmas
Celebrating
Christmas "in a paganly detached manner," considering it a
"beautiful and pious legend," thinking that the Christmas discourse
is simply "a figure of speech": all this means disengaging from
Revelation and Redemption. God becomes a child "not to amuse himself, to
play," but to reveal to us that "God's throne in the world is not in
human thrones, but in the depths and depths of humanity, in the manger."
Around his throne he did not want the great ones of the earth, but obscure and
unknown figures "who never tire of gazing at this miracle and want to live
completely by God's mercy." The manger and the cross are the two realities
that determine the destiny of humanity. Before them, the courage of the great
ones of this world dissolves, and in its place fear takes its place. In truth,
"no violent person dares approach the manger, and not even King Herod did
so. Precisely because here thrones totter, the violent fall, the proud are
brought low, because God is with the lowest […]. Before Mary, the servant, the
manger of Christ, before the God of lowliness, the strong man falls, he has no
rights, no hope, he is judged».
Such
considerations lead to a sincere examination of conscience. "In the light
of the manger," what is high and what is low in human life? Do we have the
same criteria as the Lord in making a judgment on this matter? "Each of us
lives with people we call high-ranking and with people we call low-ranking.
Each of us always has someone who is lower than him. Will this Christmas help
us to learn once again to radically change our minds on this point, to change
our mentality and to know that our path, to the extent that it must be a path
to God, does not lead us upwards, but rather, in a very real way, downwards,
towards the lowly, and to know that every path tending only upwards necessarily
ends in a frightening way?" Bonhoeffer's conclusion is peremptory:
"God does not allow us to make fun of him ( Gal 6:7). He does not
allow us to celebrate Christmas year after year without taking it seriously. He
certainly keeps his word, and at Christmas, when he enters, with his glory and
with his power into the manger, he will overthrow the violent from their
thrones if finally, finally they do not convert" (RD, 18).
*
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A
child is born for us
In
another sermon-meditation of Christmas 1940, Bonhoeffer focuses on the text of
Isaiah (9:5-6): "A child is born to us" and on the titles with which
the prophet describes him. The elevated tones are shot through with shivers of
emotion at the awareness that the prophet's today is also our today. Even in
our time, so burdened by sin and misery, a child is born who brings about our
redemption. "My life now depends solely on the fact that this child is
born, that this son is given to us , that this descendant of man, this
Son of God belongs to me, that I know him, that I have him, that I love him,
that I am his and that he is mine" (RD, 26).
Faced
with the statement that "on the frail shoulders of this newborn baby rests
the sovereignty of the entire world," self-confident modern man might
perhaps laugh mockingly; but believers know that the Child of Bethlehem is
"God in human form." They also know that the sovereignty resting on
his shoulders "consists in patiently bearing humanity and its sins. And
this bearing begins in the manger, begins there where the eternal Word of God
took on human flesh and carried it."
What
names does the prophet give to this Child? Wonderful Counselor :
"From the eternal counsel of God has come the birth of the savior
child," who with his love conquers and saves us. "This Son of God,
since he is his wonderful counselor, is also a source of all miracles and all
counsel." Powerful God : "Here he is poor like us, wretched
and defenseless like us, a man of blood and flesh like us, our brother. And yet
he is God, yet he is powerful. Where is the divinity, where is the power of
this child? In the divine love with which he became equal to us. His misery in
the manger is his power." Forever Father : in this child the
eternal love of the Father is revealed because "the Son is one with the
Father [...]. Born in time, he brings eternity with him to earth." Prince
of Peace : "Where God comes to men and unites himself with them out of
love, there peace is made between God and man, and between man and man. If you
fear God's wrath, go to the child in the manger and let him give you God's
peace. If you are at odds with your brother and hate him, come and see how God
has become our brother out of pure love and wants to reconcile us. Violence
reigns in the world; this child is the Prince of Peace. Where he is, there
peace reigns" (RD, 30).
*
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Courage
and deep faith
It
took courage and deep faith to write these words when Hitler's army was
advancing victoriously on many European nations, convinced that Gott mit Uns
, that God was with the Aryan race, that God was the Third Reich .
While many intellectuals, scientists and artists had emigrated because they
were aware of the end of all cultural freedom, he — Bonhoeffer — had returned
to Germany from the United States to help his nation rediscover its soul, its
freedom, above all to remind it where the roots of peace lie. Karl Barth, his
teacher, had denounced the irreconcilability of Nazism with Christianity and
abandoned Germany; Bonhoeffer, overcoming all fears, had decided to remain
alongside the "Confessing Church" ( die bekennende
Kirche ) of clear opposition to Nazism. To the Third Reich it
opposed the kingdom of God.
«Only
where Jesus is not allowed to reign, where human obstinacy, spite, hatred, and
greed can run wild, can there be no peace. Jesus does not want his kingdom of
peace through violence, but rather gives his wondrous peace to those who
voluntarily submit to him and let him reign over them […]. A kingdom of peace
and justice, the unfulfilled desire of humanity, began with the birth of the
divine child. We are called to this kingdom, and we can find it if we receive
in the Church, in the community of believers, the word and sacrament of the
Lord Jesus Christ, if we submit ourselves to his sovereignty, if we recognize
in the child placed in the manger our savior and redeemer and allow him to give
us a new life in love» (RD, 32f). Al Gott mit To the Nazis, the Lutheran
pastor opposes the "God with us, Jesus-Emmanuel" of Christmas.
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God
becomes man out of love for men.
We celebrate this
Christmas in a historical period at times threatened by the strategy of horror,
under skies of uncertainty and dismay, albeit without the immense tragedies of
the Second World War. Some thinkers and writers have long since chanted De
Profundis for humanity. Bonhoeffer lived in times much darker than ours.
Instead of De Profundis , he invited the men of his time to contemplate
the manger of Bethlehem, so as to be able to sing the hymn of hope despite the
gloom of the times. Two of his thoughts punctuate its notes: "The figure
of the one who reconciles, the God-Man Jesus Christ, stands between God and the
world, and occupies the center of all events. In him the secret of the world is
revealed, and in him the secret of God is revealed. No abyss of evil can remain
hidden from him through whom the world is reconciled with God. But the abyss of
God's love encompasses even the most abysmal iniquity." « God becomes man out of love for men. He does not seek
the most perfect of men to unite himself with him, but assumes human nature as
it is. Jesus Christ is not a transfigured humanity of exaltation, but God's
"yes" to real man; not the dispassionate "yes" of a judge,
but the merciful "yes" of a companion in suffering. This
"yes" contains the entire life and hope of the world» ( Ethics ,
cit., 62f.).
CHRISTMAS AS A DECISION
