In 1933, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, at the age of 27, began his pastoral duties in two small German-speaking congregations in London. These were St. Paul's, a Reformed church located in Whitechapel in London's East End, and Syndenham in Forest Hill, south London. For 18 months Bonhoeffer preached each Sunday; then in the spring of 1935 he was asked by the leadership of the Confessing Church in Germany to return to his native country to accept a very significant assignment. He became the director of one of the five seminaries of the Confessing Church, first located in Zingst and eventually in Finkenwalde, near Stettin, high up on the Baltic Coast.
This Advent sermon was preached just six weeks after Bonhoeffer arrived in London. Adolf Hitler had been in power for almost a year. The course of Nazi dominance over Germany's political, economic, and social life had been launched with the following events:
- burning of the Reichstag building in February, followed by curtailment of free speech and assembly;
- one-day boycott of all Jewish businesses;
- institution of the Gestapo secret police;
- burning of books authored by non-Aryans;
- banning of all political parties except the Nazis;
- signing of the concordat between the Third Reich and the Vatican;
- election of Ludwig Muller as national bishop of the Protestant church;
- prohibition of pastors with Jewish ancestry from serving Protestant congregations;
- formation of the Pastors' Emergency Union;
- the November national elections that gave Hitler 92 per cent of the vote.
Bonhoeffer's close ties with family and friends in Germany gave him detailed knowledge of these developments. Bonhoeffer was surely one of the few Christian leaders in 1933 who sensed the ominous and foreboding character of Hitler's rise to power. Although there is no direct reference to events in his native Germany, his confident message must have conveyed encouragement and hope to his hearers.
Bonhoeffer's Advent sermon portrays the incarnate one as rescuer and deliverer, liberator and savior. Fifty years later its word of liberation and redemption is timely for all who live under oppression in its multiple forms. This sermon appears here in English for the first time.
—by F. Burton Nelson, translation by Daniel Bloesch
Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
—Luke 21:28
You know what a mine disaster is. In recent weeks we have had to read about one in the newspapers.
The moment even the most courageous miner has dreaded his whole life long is here. It is no use running into the walls; the silence all around him remains. He knows people are crowding together on the surface; but the way out for him is blocked. He knows the people up there are working feverishly to reach the miners who are buried alive. Perhaps someone will be rescued, but here in the last shaft? An agonizing period of waiting and dying is all that remains.
But suddenly a noise that sounds like tapping and breaking in the rock can be heard. Unexpectedly, voices cry out, "Where are you, help is on the way!" Then the disheartened miner picks himself up, his heart leaps, he shouts, "Here I am, come on through and help me! I'll hold out until you come! Just come soon!" A final, desperate hammer blow to his ear, now the rescue is near, just one more step and he is free.
We have spoken of Advent itself. That is how it is with the coming of Christ: "Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
To whom does one speak in this way? Think of the prisoners. For a long time they have borne the punishment of their captivity. One prisoner tried to escape again and again, but he was dragged back, and then it was even worse. And now all of a sudden a message rings through the prison: in a short while you shall be free, your chains will fall, your oppressors will be bound and you will be redeemed. Then the chorus of prisoners shouts out, "Yes, come, O rescuer!"
Think of the sick person in great pain who longs for the end of the affliction and now the day comes when the doctor tells the ailing one in a reassuring and clear voice, "Today you will be delivered."
Think of the person with the secret we spoke of on the Day of Repentance—the person who lives in unforgiven sin and loses the meaning of life as well as a cheerful nature. Think of those of us who strive to lead a Christian, obedient life and yet fail; think of the son who can no longer look his father straight in the eye or the husband who can no longer look his wife straight in the eye. Think of the disruption of these lives and the hopeless mess they are in. And then let us hear again, "Look up, raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." You shall be free! Your souls' anguish and anxiety will end, your redemption is near!
Just as the father says to his child, "Don't look at the ground, look at me, your father," we read here in the gospel: "Look up, raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near."
Who is addressed here? People who know they are enslaved and in chains. People who know that an oppressor has them under control and forces them to do compulsory labor. People like that miner who was buried alive, or like that prisoner; people who would like to be rescued.
This word is not addressed to all those who have become so accustomed to their condition that they no longer notice they are captives; people who have put up with their plight for all kinds of reasons and have become so apathetic that they are not provoked when someone calls out to them, "Your redemption is near." This Advent word is not meant for the well fed and satisfied, but for those who hunger and thirst. There is a knocking at their door, powerful and insistent. And like that miner buried alive in the mine, we hear every blow, every step closer the rescuer takes with extreme alertness. Can one even imagine that the miner ever thought of anything other than the approaching liberation from the moment he heard the first tapping against the rock?
And now the first Sunday in Advent tells us nothing else: "Your redemption is drawing near!" It is already knocking at the door, don't you hear it? It is breaking open its way through the rubble and hard rock of your life and heart. It isn't happening quickly, but it is coming. Christ is breaking open his way to you. He wants to again soften your heart which has become hard. In these weeks of Advent while we are waiting for Christmas, he calls to us that he is coming and that he will rescue us from the prison of our existence, from fear, guilt, and loneliness.
Do you want to be redeemed? That is the one great question Advent puts to us. Does even a vestige of longing burn in us? If not, what do we want from Advent, what do we want from Christmas? A little inner emotion?
However, if there is still something in us that is stirred up by this word, if there is something in us that believes this word, if we sense that a turning to Christ could happen again in our lives—why then aren't we simply obedient? Why then don't we listen to the word "your redemption is near," the word offered to us and shouted in our ears? Don't you hear it? Just wait a short while longer and then the tapping will grow louder and more unmistakable from hour to hour and from day to day! Then Christmas will come and we will be ready! Christ the Savior is here!
Perhaps you will say, "You've always said that in the church and nothing has ever come of it!" Why has nothing ever come of it? Because we didn't want anything to come of it, because we didn't want to hear and believe, because we said, "It may be that one miner or another is rescued, but the Savior will not get through to us—we who are buried so deep, so far away, so unaccustomed to church. We don't have any aptitude for religion. We would like to, but that doesn't speak to us."
But we are only making excuses with that kind of talk. If we really wanted to, if it were not an evasion, we would finally begin to pray that this Advent would make a stop in our hearts. Let us make no mistake about it. Redemption is drawing near. Only the question is: Will we let it come to us as well or will we resist it? Will we let ourselves be pulled into this movement coming down from heaven to earth or will we refuse to have anything to do with it? Either with us or without us, Christmas will come. It is up to each individual to decide what it will be.
That such an Advent event creates something other than a depressed and weak-kneed Christianity becomes clear from the two invitations that introduce our text: "Look up and raise your heads." Advent creates new men and women. Look up, you whose eyes are fixed on this earth, you who are captivated by the events and changes on the surface of this earth. Look up, you who turned away from heaven to this ground because you had become disillusioned. Look up, you whose eyes are laden with tears, you who mourn the loss of all that the earth has snatched away. Look up, you who cannot lift up your eyes because you are so laden with guilt. "Look up, your redemption is drawing near."
Something different than you see daily, something more important, something infinitely greater and more powerful is taking place. Become aware of it, be on guard, wait a short while longer, wait and something new will overtake you! God will come, Jesus will take possession of you and you will be redeemed people!
Lift up your heads, you army of the afflicted, the humbled, the discouraged, you defeated army with bowed heads. The battle is not lost, the victory is yours—take courage, be strong! There is no room here for shaking your heads and doubting, because Christ is coming.
Now we ask again: do we hear the tapping and driving as the rescuer fights his way forward, do we hear how something in us wants to burst open and become free to move toward Christ? Do we sense that this is not only figurative speech, but that something is really taking place here, that human souls are being raised up, shaken, torn apart and healed; that heaven is bending toward the earth and the earth trembles, and the people lose heart in fear and joy?
Can the miner buried alive pay attention to anything but this hammering and knocking of the rescuers? Can and may something else still be more important to us than paying attention to this hammering and knocking of Jesus Christ in our lives? What else is at issue in all that is taking place but listening and standing up and taking notice? What else is at issue here but trembling and stretching out our arms toward him?
Something is at work that makes it possible for us not to close our hearts but to open up to him who wants to come in. In the middle of the winter Luther once cried out when he preached on our text in the Advent season, "Summer is near, the trees want to burst forth in blossom. It is springtime." They who have ears to hear, listen! Amen.
Translator Daniel Bloesch was the minister of the Community Church, Round Lake, Illinois, and F. Burton Nelson was Professor of Theology and Ethics at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago when this article appeared. This Bonhoeffer sermon had not previously been available in English.
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