[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, on this first Sunday of Advent - because you know that it is the first Sunday of Advent - I would like to deal with the mystery of the person of Jesus. Because this beautiful, almost idyllic story that I have just read from the Bible is about the mystery of the person of Jesus. How mysterious and unique Jesus is, brothers and sisters, is evident from the fact that in his person the ancient Old Testament prophecy has been fulfilled, according to which his person will be a stone of stumbling and a rock of stumbling for many, in whom many will be stumbling and against whom many will speak out against him. And the apostle Paul, when he said of the cross of Jesus that it was a stumbling block to the Jews and a folly to the Greeks, was evidently expressing the public opinion which was already prevalent in his day. For indeed, from that time to this very day, many people of a religious mind stumbled at the person of Jesus, and the philosophically educated chiefs simply laughed at the person of Jesus. Behold, then, his birth is no less a stumbling block and a folly. Humanly speaking, indeed, one can only say of him what I have just read, that what the angel says to this girl called Mary, that the Holy Spirit comes upon you, that the power of the Most High overshadows you, and that the one who is born is called Holy, the Son of God, is quite simply physically absurd. This extraordinary miracle, thus expressed by this angelic message, was summed up some time long ago by our ancestors in this sentence of the Apostles' Creed, 'conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary'. But now, brothers and sisters, I urge you all not to consider this statement from a medical or biological point of view, because that is not what it is at all about. It is about the fact that the incomprehensible and incredible miracle of the Most High God descending among us human beings, of the invisible God becoming visible in a human life and walking among us on this earth, cannot be expressed in human words, but only in such incomprehensible words. Only in such a stammering way, only poured into such a very strange vessel of human words, "conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary". And here, in particular, I would like to emphasise once again what I have stressed so many times in this pulpit, that this biblical account of the birth of Jesus, and the creedal thesis that it contains, is not an explanation at all. It does not seek to explain the mystery of the person of Jesus, but merely to point out the mystery itself. So this formulation and this biblical story is precisely a complete renunciation of any human explanation, and a complete rejection of any reasoning that would seek to make this mystery, the mystery of the person of Jesus, more comprehensible to our human understanding. Somewhat like a ladybird cannot explain to himself the structure of an earth rocket. In the same way, how can we humans explain to ourselves the coming to earth of this wonderful "heavenly rocket", Jesus?! The person of Jesus is a miracle. I could almost say that he is the only true miracle in this world. And yet, when I want to speak of this miracle, this mystery, I want to do nothing more than to make us wonder at it with great, grateful amazement.Brothers and sisters, the biblical story that I have read and the creedal thesis that I have quoted from it are unanimous in mentioning two factors in relation to the person of Jesus: the Holy Spirit and Mary. So on the one hand a divine factor, and on the other hand a human factor. And this suggests that in the person of Jesus these two natures were united in one person. So the Jesus who walked this earth two thousand years ago is a wonderful person who is very truly human and at the same time very truly God. Let us think a little more about what that means. So he is very truly human. A flesh and blood human being like us sitting here. He was born into this world from his mother's womb just like any of us. He was a baby, just as we were babies. Then he was later an adolescent boy, just as our current confirmation children are. Then later he was a young man like our college boys, our college children. Then he was a grown man like a man of 30-32-33 years old today. He also had suffering in his heart. His body knew fatigue, hunger, thirst, pain, just like any of our bodies. He was just as misunderstood and just as gallantly abused and drilled as so many people on this earth today. Around him the great tempter was always lurking, seeking to bring him down and off course as much as he sought to bring you or me down. And he too has suffered all the miseries of the human body, to the point where the heart stops, and where the body grows cold and returns to the dust from which it was made. Between his birth and death there is a whole human destiny. So the human destiny of the man called Jesus of Nazareth on earth was very truly human. But at the same time, we could say that he was somehow quite unique, unique and extraordinary. As a human being, he was a man like no other in the world.
His whole life was a life, a light without a shadow. The closer you look at him, the more you study him, the brighter he shines. So it's not like other people, who if you look at them closely you see their faults, but you see Jesus all the more brilliant. It is such a wonderful thing that you cannot find any fault in him. No matter how we look for it, we cannot find any fault in him. Nowhere could you say, well, he didn't do that right here, or he didn't answer right here. Or here he had the wrong, untruthful impulse. Nowhere does some human weakness come out of him, as it does from every other human being. And what is even more surprising and almost downright stumbling, he himself was convinced of his own perfect innocence, absolute purity and innocence. And in this he was not pretentious. He, who saw the whole world as being fatally immersed in sin and to be rescued from it, and he, who considered it the greatest sin that anyone should deny the existence of sin in itself, was yet, in his own judgment, free from all sin. He had not therefore in him the very thing which he required of others, repentance. His lips were never open to confession. He never apologised. He never felt at all in need of God's mercy. He, who proclaimed that this whole world lives by the grace of God, never claimed it, and even dispensed it with full power.
So the person of Jesus stood out above us not relatively as a great man, as a giant of the spirit, but somehow as one unique in relation to all mankind. So much so, that when at the end of his life he was taken and bound and nailed to a cross, all this action of his was described by him even earlier as the Son of Man being delivered into the hands of men. He did not say into the hands of evil men, but into the hands of men. It is as if he had said that the Son of Man is given into the hands of mankind, as one whom mankind casts out of himself. He was so different, so essentially different from every other man on this earth, that mankind could not bear it: he was cast out of himself. This strange, this quite extraordinary, this quite strange man.
So he was a man. Truly, truly human, and yet somehow quite differently human from the way we are. If I say that Jesus was a man, I am absolutely right. But, at the same time, if I say of Jesus' person that he is God, I have also been absolutely right. That is the mystery of his person. And it is precisely this mystery that is indicated by this angelic message that I read, "The Holy Spirit is upon you and the power of the Most High overshadows you. So that whatever is born will be called holy, the Son of God". So God.
And let us see that he is God not only by his works, by his miraculous deeds, but also, for example, by the fact that he never calls God Lord, as the prophets do. The prophets always began their prophecies with "thus saith the Lord", and Jesus says, "and I say unto you". So he is speaking for God. He always speaks of God, or of himself, as one with God. Or at the most, "I and the Father". In the High Priest's prayer, for example, he says: "my disciples have acknowledged, Father, that I came from you". Let us think of ourselves in this statement: Jesus as a God from God, a "fragment" of God. Then, when Thomas kneels before him with such great reverence and adoration and cries out to him, "My Lord and my God!", this address, which is not at all appropriate for a man, and is even deadly offensive, is not only not rejected by Jesus, but his response almost seems to be as if he were saying: At last, Thomas, have you also found out who I am? Have you now recognized God in me too? And when the disciples ask Jesus to show us the Father, Jesus simply points to himself and says that he who has seen me has seen the Father. He almost takes it the wrong way: how can they ask him to show us the Father, since he is the embodiment, the earthly appearance of the Father. He is the visible image of the invisible God here on earth, so whoever does not honour him does not honour the Father. And somehow all boundaries between him and the Father disappear, the two merge. He says things like 'I and the Father are one', 'I am in the Father and the Father is in me'. Brothers and sisters, whoever says such things, being a man, is either mad, or truly God!
Yes, Jesus is a man, but a wonderful man in whose person God is. Well, then, if his person is so mysterious and his whole being so wonderful, how can his birth not be mysterious and wonderful! "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee: therefore is that which is born called holy, the Son of God". Unintelligible? Of course it is incomprehensible! How could it not be incomprehensible. But here again, let me emphasize something that I have said many times before, but which needs to be said again in this context: that which is incomprehensible is not always incomprehensible. And observe here, too, in what a higher connection with his whole wonderful person, his being a man of God, is this angelic message, that "the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee, for that which is born and called holy of the Son of God". Brethren, no more can be said of the mystery of the person of Jesus than this, for in this strange man God Himself enters the earth. So he is born like any of us, but conceived by the Holy Spirit, a virgin - so in a very different way from any of us.
The Holy Spirit of God always flows through his word, his word. So God spoke to Mary, and with that word, that Word, God made Mary the mother of Jesus. The word of God, the word of God became flesh in Mary, became the flesh of Jesus. How is this possible? Mary asked the same question at the time. And for us too there is only one answer, the same answer that Mary received from the angelic messenger at that time, that nothing is impossible with God. Such a wonderful person is the one we know as Jesus Christ. No wonder, indeed, that for so many people he is a stumbling block and a fool, but no wonder that for us who believe in him he is the power of God, the redeeming power of God.
Now, one of you here could tell me that this is a very beautiful and very sublime theological problem. But what does all this have to do with real life, in which we have a whole different set of problems to deal with? Such problems as the problems of the home, the problems of family life, the preparation for the holidays, the rush to work, the rationing of money, the temptation of blood, the thousand problems of making a living - in other words, life itself. For life, this modern life, with its rush, bustle, noise, so quickly drowns out in us all that we have just heard so beautifully about the mystery of the person of Jesus. Well, brothers and sisters, I have told you all this in such detail so that you may understand that it was into this hectic, noisy, bustling life that Jesus came in a very real way. For by being truly man, fully man and fully God, he is precisely in this way fully in our daily life, but also fully above our daily life. So on the one hand he is part of this earthly life and the problems, troubles and burdens of this earthly life, but at the same time he is also Lord of this earthly life, of the problems, troubles and burdens of this earthly life. On the one hand, he is our companion, and on the other hand, he is our Lord who helps us to bear this fate. Practically speaking, this means that the troubles and problems of life are not the supreme power over us, so that we are not at the mercy of the whims of our fate, but are under his dominion. Yes, in the factory and in the office, and in all the vicissitudes of our fate, we are always under his sway. So that all our problems just like the hairs on our head are all accounted for by him. Before him in whom God has come among us.
And there is another very practical consequence of the fact that Jesus is real man and real God. It is in this way that he brings into our fallen human lives the redemptive power and meaning of God. Brothers and sisters, the rebirth of every human being, human soul or human life is just as much a miracle as the birth of Jesus. In fact, in every true new birth, what we read here is that "the Holy Spirit comes upon you and the power of the Most High overshadows you, and whatever is born is called holy, the Son of God". So what happens is that God speaks, and by the power of his word, new life is conceived somewhere in me, and this new life is simply born and becomes visible in my actions. That is also a miracle, brothers and sisters! Is it not a divine miracle that in a heart that was full of anger, hatred, selfishness, envy, love is born? Isn't it a divine miracle that a middle-aged man came into this church, full of unrest, bound and unresolved sexual sins, and after an hour he left a completely different man, purified, liberated, born again?! Something was stirring in him, some new life, the same life as in Mary's body. It is the same life, and that is how all Christian life begins, that at the word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a new germ of life enters into a man, and Christ becomes visible, real, through the life of that man. This is the new birth. It is a miracle just like the birth of Jesus. For someone who has experienced this miracle of the new birth, the birth of Jesus presents no problem of faith.
Finally, brothers and sisters, it is precisely because Jesus is a real man and a real God that we can all be empowered to begin a new life in Christ through faith in Jesus. To a new life in Christ, in which one experiences for oneself every day, again and again, with amazement, that with God nothing is impossible. Not even for miserable people like you and me to become real Christians, not just nominal ones. To become redeemed, sanctified, blessed people with a life of blessing.
Amen.
Date: 3 December 1967.