[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! On this beautiful, intimate, family celebration of our congregation, when the confirmands have come to us, and when they will say now, as they do every year, "I believe and confess, I promise and I pledge", and confess their faithfulness to Jesus and to the Church, I would like to be the servant whom the Lord sends to call: come, all is now ready! The supper is ready, and not only this communion awaits us at this table. It is also ready, and it is also great that we are all invited to it now. But now we are talking about another supper, of which this supper is only a symbol. The great wedding supper, which we read in the Gospel of Matthew in particular, that is, in another account, that a very rich gentleman prepares for the wedding, the wedding feast, of his only son. We too, all of us, are invited to a glittering, rich, splendid wedding, a royal wedding. This is Jesus' way of showing us what a joy it is to follow him, what a good thing it is to follow him, that following him is in fact a joyous celebration, a joyous celebration of being with him, full of joy and surprise. Everyone who has really started to follow Jesus knows this. And indeed: being a follower of Jesus is a good thing! The best thing in the world! The Christian life, the true Christian life, is the most beautiful and the best way of life on this earth that is worth living. No one who has really made the effort has ever regretted it.I have said it many times before, and let me say it again: I have never heard a believer say that I would like to be a non-believer, but I have heard a non-believer say many times that I would like to be a believer too! Well, then, what so many people long for, the life of following Christ, fellowship with God, the great supper - that is what we are believers for! That's why I say that this is the picture Jesus uses to show us how joyful it is to be with Him. Indeed, isn't it so good to go to a place where people rejoice? And no one rejoices for us more than Jesus. It is a joy to be with one who loves us, and who truly desires our good, and in whom we can truly trust, unconditionally; well, who better to know that he loves you and can be trusted than Jesus Christ? So great and so joyful is it that man is not at the mercy of fate, of chance, but that Someone protects, protects, guides our lives with a sure hand! This is what Jesus, to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given, does.
Is it not a good thing to be in good friendship with a powerful One? That's what Jesus wants! He is the best friend. And what a great thing, Brothers and Sisters, to be good to someone in Jesus' name! And this is what Jesus calls us to do, to overcome temptations with Jesus, to fight against sin with Jesus' power. Or even to take suffering with Jesus - even that is a good thing. The joy of living with Jesus! And Brothers and Sisters, that is what we are called to do. After all, you have heard from the Word that it is a marriage supper, a royal supper! This means that the whole Christian life is in fact a celebration of joy from beginning to end, which is uninterrupted, even by death. So let no one be afraid of Jesus in his youth, let no one be afraid of Jesus in the joy of his life, because Jesus is not the enemy of life, but the true author of it! He is so much the author that in His presence even natural joy becomes truly joyful, even natural happiness becomes truly happiness.
But often this expectation is more in the form of a disappointed complaint. For example, it is perhaps a well-known fact that Gandhi, when he was very young, wanted to join a Christian denomination, and in Africa, where he was visiting at the time, he wanted to enter a Christian church, but saw a sign on the door that read: Negroes not allowed! And although Gandhi was not a Negro, he did not go into that church. He never wanted to go in again! He did not want to enter a place where Negroes were not allowed. Because he expected that the followers of Jesus, following the example of their Master, would want to heal the wounds that racial and social discrimination had inflicted on the body of humanity. He expected this and was disappointed. So many people have been disappointed. But Brothers and Sisters, all those disappointments show that they expected something from Christianity, they expected something from Christian people. They expected Christian people to be a different kind of people from other people. Somehow people on whom the power of evil would be broken, people who would infuse the beauty and goodness of the heavenly world into the ugliness and abomination of the earthly world. Somehow they are those who truly struggle, in the spirit of Christ, against poverty and inhumanity and injustice.
Christian young people were expected by this world to help other young people against the passion of blood and drink. And Christian marriages were expected to be blessed communities, sanctified in Christ, from which healing powers would flow to the wounds of other families. The world expected something like this, and was disappointed. Do you know, Brothers and Sisters, that after all this disappointment, there is still something to look forward to in Christianity? This is best seen in the fact that the same sin, the same fall, which the world takes for granted from a non-believer, the same cannot be forgiven to a believer. He resents it terribly. Because the fall of a believer is more offensive because more was expected, something else was expected. And then the world says, if something more beautiful and something purer cannot be expected from those who preach the most beautiful and pure principles, from whom? Then from no one!
Do you feel, Brothers and Sisters, that the world, even if it does not say so, has some great, great claim on us?! It is not in vain that it is written in the Epistle to the Romans that this "created world is eagerly waiting for the appearance of the sons of God" (Rom 8,19). To show the way out of sexual confusion, to be examples of beauty and honesty and trustworthiness, to be people to hold on to, to help: that's what this world is waiting for! It eagerly awaits the emergence of the true sons of God! What would it be, Brothers and Sisters, if this world were to express this need of ours, not only unconsciously, but also consciously? What if it said: if you are a Christian man, if you are a follower of Jesus, who healed the sick, who raised the dead, who preached love; - give me some remedy for my pain, give me some help in the struggles of my life, give me some purity in my life, give me strength in my temptations!
And what then, Brethren, if truly incurable sick people were brought in here, and then laid here, as that father laid his sick son, and asked us to lay our hands on them and heal them?! As our Master used to do, for we are His disciples, and we have received such a mandate from Him. Do you think this is some kind of excessive demand on Christians by the world? If this world knew what promises, what promises of Jesus we have broken, this world would hate us even more than it hates us. The problem is that we can't imagine that such a thing is possible, that such miracles can even happen! And that is the problem! It is that we ourselves do not believe - just as the disciples did not believe - that the healing effects of the Spirit of Christ can flow through a believer, into society and into the lives of other people, and there they can work healing and miracles can happen in their lives. But oh, how people wait, oh, how they wait!
Now I have also experienced in the hospital, that where just a tiny little bit of Christ is experienced in a person, other people cling to him, open their hearts to him, tell him their problems, wait for our help, wait! In a case like this one, where a father was waiting for his son to be healed by the disciples, it showed how much that thing we call faith has shrunk in us. How deformed it had become in us. How it had become nothing. That we can't even believe that miracles can be performed by a believer in Christ. Miracles that relieve and heal the millions of miseries of human life. Yes, we cannot even imagine it. The disciples couldn't believe it either, and when they asked Jesus why they couldn't heal that patient, Jesus says, "Because of your unbelief"! (Mt 17:20) Well, because they did not believe. And Brethren, that is why the world is disappointed in Christianity, because we do not believe. We do not believe what we believe. Because we don't believe in the power of God, that God is greater than the problem to be solved, than the sin, temptation and tribulation to be overcome. So we do not believe in the power of God!
So unusually powerful is this statement of Jesus when he says, "O faithless and degenerate generation, how long will I be with you? how long will I suffer you?" For Jesus is far more pained by the little faith of his own followers than by the unbelief, mockery and intrigue of his enemies. And after the bankruptcy is thus revealed, Jesus then says something about faith that is quite breathtaking, which again we do not believe. One such statement is that "all things are possible for the believer"! (Mark 9:23) And another is, "If you had faith as a mustard seed...nothing would be impossible for you"! (Mt 17,20) It also illustrates what would be possible. What promise, what authority, what power! And what a gift and what an opportunity faith is! This word of Jesus suggests that faith is the realization of the power of God. By giving itself as a means for the powers of God to be manifested, to be realised, to work, to be believed. For it is by faith, through faith, that the power of God works and acts. So it is not faith by its own power that works the miracle, but faith that brings us into contact with the God before whom nothing is impossible. So faith is not the great and the powerful, but it is directed towards Him. God is the great and the powerful. And the Almighty! That is why he compares it to the mustard seed, which Jesus says is the smallest of all seeds, but is enough to make God's power real. Enough to. But the emphasis is not on it being big and strong, but on it being like a seed: alive! So it must be a living relationship between me and God! Then it doesn't matter if it is big or small. Just as with a wire, it is not important what colour it is, but that it carries the current. The quality of faith is also determined by the way it leads the heavenly energy into my heart. And to make me a partaker of redemption, of forgiveness, of a relationship with God. Turn me on to God! And then all of God's work in the context of human faith is all miracles.
So miracles could be performed by the believer in Christ today. That is why Jesus turns to the father with the question of faith when he says: if you can believe, it is possible. And then the paradox of unbelieving faith is uttered on the father's lips, "I believe, Lord! Help my unbelief"! (Mk 9,24) How strange! You know, when the father finds out that all he has to do is believe, he gets a kick out of it and says, "Of course I believe, Lord, because nothing is easier. And the moment he says it, he feels that oh, he doesn't believe, oh, he doesn't believe! For that is the hardest thing! I can't even believe for myself! Well, the faith I have is little more than unbelief! And this is what the disciples experienced. They too thought they believed, and then it turned out that they didn't! So it is true for all of us. It is true that we believe, and it is true that we do not believe. But how good it is that even in our unbelief we can ask for help. Even in unbelief we can ask for help, I believe, Lord, help me in my unbelief. Not in my faith, but in my unbelief. We can go to God in unbelief and ask for help.
In conclusion, Brothers and Sisters, let me just say that Martin Luther in the 16th century formulated the great question of the century thus: "How can I find a merciful God?" This was the great question of the 16th century. Today, the great question of the present century could be formulated in this way: "How do I find a merciful man?" Man! Because that is what the world is looking for. Where is the merciful man? The man who is willing and able to help. A good man, a trustworthy man, a man with a pure heart, a pure hand, a pure look. The just man, the humane man - where can he be found? Where, then, if not among the followers of Christ?
Well, feel always this unspoken demand and expectation of the world. For this world is longing for you to help alleviate and heal the millions of miseries of human life by the power of the Spirit of Christ. And however great this need may be, it is not impossible. Jesus says: "All things are possible for the believer"! (Mk 9,23) So, brothers and sisters, for this miracle of faith given by God and for this faith of miracles done by God, let us pray together. Thus:
Teach us to believe, Lord, teach us to ask.
Childlike, teach us to ask for great faith!
Revive my heart, inspire it, for thee
To gather souls! Teach me to ask!
(Canto 479, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 24 April 1966 Confirmation.
Lesson
Lk 14,15-24