An illuminated sculpture remembers the destroyed Bohemian Bethlehem Church.
Although easy to reach, the small Bethlehemkirchplatz [visitberlin.de] can easily be overlooked on the city map by visitors of Berlin. The place is being situated west of the subway stations “Stadtmitte” and “Kochstraße” (U6) in between “Check-Point Charlie” and the “Museum for Communication”. Where deterrent border fortifications could be found until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the foundations of the “Bethlehemskirche” (Bohemian Bethlehem Church) were excavated. The church, being inaugurated in 1737, was built as a homestead for bohemian refuges and other foreigners. Today, a mosaic in the pavement of the Bethlehemkirchplatz shows the ground plan of the former church. In the meantime, a sculpture called “Houseball” was added which symbolizes all the household goods that a refugee might be able to carry. At the turn of the millennium, the square was renamed to „Bethlehemkirchplatz“. A downsized advertising pillar contains explanations in German, English and Czech language. It was this impressive square that inspired the conceptual artist Juan Garaizabal.
Yes, He is the hero who should and would take on the strong armed one, i.e. the devil who had forced us under his power, to overcome him and to crush his head. “Eternal Father” is the name of the wonderful child, for He is the same yesterday and today and in eternity, and He has mercy on us, just as a father has mercy on children. This child is called “Prince of Peace” or Solomon, for that earthly king Solomon was only a weak example of Him, who was to kill all hostility and bring back the peace on earth that had been lost. Behold, beloved, this is the child in the manger in Bethlehem, what do you think? Can you believe it? St. Paul calls the Word of the Incarnation a foolish sermon, because the natural, unenlightened (page 56) reason shakes its head over it and cannot find it. But the same apostle further testifies: “In the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” [1 Cor. 1:21] For all our happiness and salvation, my dear ones, depends on this child; without this little child it would be better for us all never to have been born. But — God be praised eternally! this Child is born to us, and God has revealed the riches of His grace and mercy through the same. Hallelujah!
Let us now continue our journey into the glorious history of the festival! “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” [Luke 2:8] — simple-minded shepherds waiting for the comfort of Israel. “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them.” [Luke 2:9] The glory of “the Lord,” the glory of the little child lying in the manger, who is the Lord of all lords, shone in a bright, shining, far-reaching light around the shepherds in the dark night; for He who is the light of the world was born, the ascent from on high had visited the world lying in darkness and the shadow of death. This was to be indicated by the glory, by the bright shining light that accompanied the angel and shone around the shepherds. But when the dear shepherds saw this great, blinding glory of the Lord, this brightness of His glory, they were terrified and felt deeply that they were sinners — like Adam and Eve when the Lord came to them after the Fall and called them out, hiding behind the trees of the garden and being afraid. And if the Son of God had not come to redeem us, we would all have had to tremble and shake all our lives for fear of death and judgment and the horrors of eternity. But when the shepherds were so afraid, the angel said to them, as the first New Testament preacher of the sweet Gospel, “Fear not; there is no cause for fear. For “behold, I proclaim (bring you)”, I preach to you the Gospel, the good news, the Word of the “great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Then one hears, from the mouth of the heavenly messenger of our God, who this little child is. It is “Christ” who was to come, Christ the Anointed, who as our (page 57) heavenly prophet, high priest and king was anointed with the oil of joy of the Holy Spirit without measure. This is the child in the manger. Christ, for whom the fathers hoped, Christ, the seed of the woman, lies in the manger, Abraham's great offspring, the blessing for the whole world, is there, Christ, the Savior, is the child in the manger.
- - - - - - - - - - - - Note by Mr. Paul G. Preuss:
As I read and re-read this passage above I feel transported back in time and place, to the nave of the Bethlehem-Bohemian Church in Berlin in the 1870’s and Pastor Knak is preaching these very same words from his pulpit. It is Christmas, the place is filled but silent as he continues. PGP 1/13/2020
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - [sermon continues in Read more below]
The Savior, if He was to be a true, all-sufficient Savior for all poor, terminally ill sinners, had to be the strong God Himself; for otherwise He could not have borne the great, terrible burden of sin of the whole world. But He also had to be a true man, for He was to take our place and become obedient to the Father in our name, so that His obedience could be attributed to us and we could become justified before God through His obedience. Behold, the child in the manger is Christ, is the Savior, the almighty Savior, who already in the old covenant testified of Himself: “I am the Lord, your physician.” [Exodus 15:26: “I am the Lord that healeth thee.”] Behold, the child is the physician; through this wonderful child in the manger, the world shall recover, you and I as well, for otherwise it would be impossible; we would have to die for our sins of death, if God had not given us this physician, this Savior, who wants to and can heal the broken hearts in a precious way, binding all pain. So who is the child in the manger? Beloved! It is “the Lord”, it is Jehovah Himself, whose brilliance and glory illuminated the shepherds, true God, born of the Father in eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary.
And why should the Gospel of the Incarnation of God, our Savior, Mediator, Reconciler, awaken us? It is to awaken us, all of us, to great joy; for the angel says: “I proclaim to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” [Luke 2:10] Yes, this child in the manger shall be the cause and reason for great joy not only for the people of Israel, but for all peoples, nations and generations. This child is a well, an unfathomably deep well, from which a pure stream of unclouded, blessed joy gushes and flows into the joyless, desolate world. This child brings great joy, my dear ones! — Great is the guilt that we all have upon us; immeasurably great is the punishment that we have earned with our sins; but even though our sin is mighty and our guilt terribly great, the saving grace of God, which appeared to all men in Jesus Christ, is much greater (page 58) and more powerful. Yes, it is so great, this grace, that it devours all causes of fear, terror, and sadness, namely, all sin and all guilt and all misery, even death. As the sea, when one throws a small object into it, makes it disappear at once, so sin sinks into the sea of free grace. For so great is the grace of the King of Grace, in whom the affection and kindness of thy God to the world has risen, that, as Luther says, sin and all misery and all sorrow are but a little spark against a great fire.
“I proclaim to you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.” This is also my message today to you, dear ones, for I am a messenger in Christ's place. I am speaking to all these souls who have gathered here today at Christmas. I address each one of them now, because I know for certain that not a single one of them shall be excluded from the great joy in Jesus Christ Jesus — as certain as it is written: it shall happen to "all people". Oh, how the little words "all people" cheers me up and consoles me when I am challenged internally with regard to my state of grace! For then this word stands so lofty and great before me, and I think that the Scriptures cannot be broken after all, for the Holy Spirit has dictated it to His holy writers, that the great joy of all people, of all men, and therefore also of me, as surely as I am a man, shall become part of it, according to the will of God. Come, I will record that, you too shall record that, as if it were your own. Then, dear brother, listen, dear sister, I proclaim to you the word of great joy now in the name of God and in the place of Christ. I know very well who you are, and who I am, and that we shouldn't be talking about joy at all, but weeping, crying and wailing when we look at ourselves. For we are fallen creatures, we are deviated, rebellious, thoroughly corrupt sinners. But if you believe it with all your heart that you have fallen away from God in Adam and Eve and are a child of wrath by nature, if you have let the Holy Spirit reveal this to you only quite thoroughly, and recognize and weep over the desperately evil damage to your soul only with hot tears, then you of all people, with your frightened conscience, should confidently take the sweet message to yourself; for I proclaim to you, although you have not the least right (page 59) to heaven and its joys, like me, yet in the name of my God and in view of this child in the manger, this second Adam, who as the holy sacrificial lamb of God bore your and my sins — I proclaim to you in view of Him, the incarnate God and Savior, yet great joy.
O hear it, dear soul! You shall rejoice! So your God would have it; for He has no desire for your destruction, and that you should weep and gnash your teeth in hell; but He wants you and I and all people, yes, the whole world, to rejoice. For this very reason the Father in heaven gave his Son, and through Him revealed His grace and His mercy of love, and opened His heart wide to us. For we can see all comfort in the heart of the Father of mercy, your God, through His holy child Jesus. He who sees the Son sees the Father. Tell yourself, dear heart, would God have delivered His Son out of His bosom, into which poverty, into misery, and put under the law, that He would become the most despised and unworthy for our sake, if He did not love us indescribably and did not want to save us? No, that is impossible, but “God is for us,” Hallelujah! For He did not spare His only begotten Son — why? — Because He wants to spare us and deliver us from the future wrath. Therefore sing with me:
My heart should jump cheerfully
This time, because of joy
All angels are singing
Hear, hear as with full choruses
All breath shouts aloud:
Christ is born! [Gerhardt, TLH #77, v. 1;”Fröhlich soll mein Herze springen”]
And therefore our joy over Him shall not be small and slight, as one might otherwise rejoice over this or that earthly gift in the world, but our joy over this child in the manger, over this Savior, whose name is Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins, shall be great, as the angel announces to the shepherds, very great, because God has given His best and greatest in this child. Yes, we should rejoice over nothing in the whole world as dearly as over the child in the manger in Bethlehem. For in Him, this most beautiful of the children of men, the love of God has come close to us personally, so that when the child was taken in the arms, God’s love, yes, God Himself, who is love, was carried in the arms, as such happiness became part of Simeon, and as it shall become part of all who have Simeon's faith even today. (page 60)
So then I will obey the command of my God and rejoice in Christ Jesus with great joy, though I am a sinner, yes, rather because I am a sinner; for if I were a holy angel, I could and would certainly rejoice in the incarnation of God and praise Him for this miracle of grace, as these blessed spirits did; but there is no doubt about it: no holy angel can rejoice so inexpressibly about the child in the manger as you and I can. For God did not take the nature of angels, but the Savior comes from Abraham's seed after the flesh; eternal good has disguised itself in our poor human flesh and blood; and now He sits as a human in His Majesty's throne. Because we are human beings, indeed sinners, dear ones, we should rejoice before all of God our Savior with great joy, with a joy that never ends, as St. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice!” [Phil. 4:4] When we wake up in the morning, our eyes should immediately be fixed on Jesus, on the wonderful mediator and reconciler, through whose blood and wounds we have found salvation, who has become the only cause of our salvation; and when we go to sleep in the evening, we should fall asleep in joy, and praise God that we are saved through His beloved Son. — “I proclaim to you great joy.” But will you really take this proclamation to heart, and will your joy also be great on this day — and not only on this day, not only today, not only tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow and all the days of your earthly pilgrimage? And if also tribulation would come, cross and misery, will then the joy in this most holy child also outweigh the temporal tribulation, yes, will the tribulation, even the most severe one, be swallowed up, as it were, by the joy in this wonderful child? [as the martyrs of 50 years later] For so it shall be, my dearest ones. This is what my God wants, who offers you His highest treasure that He has, and gives life in the Son. For with Him He gives you His own heart, all His grace, complete absolution from all sins, the right of filiation, the inheritance of the saints in the light. All these things you shall have in and with the Son. For since He has given you the Son, how could He not give you with Him all, everything! Therefore rejoice in your dear Lord Jesus, you poor sinner, you poor sinner, and let your mourning cease; lift up your sorrowful head (page 61) and turn your eyes to this child; yes, look at Him closely and follow whole His dear life, look at him again and again and again and never let your eyes be turned away from this Son of God and man. Let us look upon Jesus, says St. Paul through the Holy Spirit, upon Him, the beginner and perfected of faith! This is also my Christmas petition to you, beloved of the Lord!
Would a warm stream of joy swell deep down in my heart, so that you would like to sing one hosanna and hallelujah after another? The poor, unhappy world knows nothing of the blissful joy of Christmas; it has its joy too, but its joy is not really joy, my brothers and sisters! For what the devil gives to the world may taste sweet to the flesh, but bitterness comes after. It is nothing but sugared poison, which the devil gives to the children of the world, and oh, they drink it with greedy gulps like water, so that the heart of a poor servant of God bleeds and he wants to cry out with Jeremiah: “Alas that mine eyes were fountains of tears, and that I would weep day and night for the poor, desolate world,” [ref. Jeremiah 9:1] which, instead of going spiritually to the crib in Bethlehem and taking the little child, which the eternal God has prepared for salvation and light for all nations, rather, the world is angry with Him and coldly passes by Him, and looks at Him for the most indifferent and most dispensable! Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, tell me how many of you rejoice from the heart in this child, this Savior, of whom we sing:
He changes wonderfully with us:
He accepts flesh and blood
And gives us in His father's kingdom
the clear deity in turn!? [“Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich”, v. 4, Nicholas Herman, TLH 105 v. 3]
I am not satisfied if you answer in silence: “I am a little glad today, but my joy is not great, for I cannot quite appropriate that all these things should also belong to unworthy me, and that I, too, most wretched of sinners should have a part in this child, just as Mary and Joseph did, as the shepherds did, as Paul and Peter did and the apostles. But, dear hearts, why do you doubt, and what prevents you from believing? — O tell me! Is it not written that this great joy shall be given to all people? Not only Mary and Joseph and the shepherds are to rejoice in the Child in Bethlehem, but all nations, all the children of Adam, all poor sinners, men, women, young men and women, virgins and young boys and girls, and even the smallest children; everything (page 62) that is human is to rejoice in this sweet child of grace, for He has enough for all, His well has water in abundance, and everyone who asks for Him is to have the same share in him. My Jesus is a general Savior — and just as the dear sunlight shines, illuminates and warms the whole world, so the sun of justified righteousness, which has risen in Christ Jesus, wants to shine on the whole poor world of sinners, and all poor sinners shall be warmed and made happy and saved in the blessed rays of this sun. Therefore, dear hearts, I am not satisfied when you say that you can rejoice only a little; rather, I must confess to you that this is only because of your little faith. O pray the Holy Spirit that He may take away from you the covering that still hangs before your eyes, so that you may not quite recognize in the child the kindness and affection of God toward you, and give you brave eyes, lively eyes of faith. For as the dear little children look with bright eyes at the Christmas tree, and as joy shines out of all their gestures and expressions, and they hurry and take with joy and gladness what love has prepared for them: so also, as unworthy as you are in yourself, you shall take, as a child with joy and gladness, the great Christmas present, the noblest pearl of God, His only-born Son, and forget all lamentations, and your harp will attune to great joy in a higher choir. The more you rejoice, the more you honor God and this His holy child; the less you rejoice, the less you give Him the due honor, yes, it is as if you did not regard Him as a perfect Savior after all, and as if your sin was greater than His grace and you did not believe it, that in this incarnate God and Savior, the whole, full, free grace of God would have appeared to you too, and that God, for the sake of this dear, holy child Jesus, wanted to forgive all your sins and forget and blot them out as a cloud and like a mist. For the child is the Lamb of God, who bore the sin of the world, carried it away completely, so that you are only pleasing to the dear Father, as the holy angels sang, and He is well-pleased with you in His Beloved, through whom peace has come from heaven to earth, and also wants to flow into your heart if you only place the jar of your heart in faith. And then you too, together with the angels, will give glory to the great God in truth (page 63). For faith gives glory to God, my dearest; but unbelief disgraces the glorious God.
Therefore let us ask for right faith:
O that my mind were an abyss
And my soul a deep sea,
That I could catch you, [“Ich steh an deiner Krippen hier”, Gerhardt, v. 4]
Thou most excellent Lord Jesus, and Thee, dear Father, in your Son! O God, Holy Spirit, pour out the love of the Father and of the Son, like a blessed stream of joy, into my heart and into the heart of my dear confessors, so that all slavish fear may be completely driven out of it through Thee, this great and perfect love of God! Yes, so let us pray, my dearest hearts! For this shall be the fruit of the wonderful message which I have been allowed to bring you today: “Joy, great joy”, and this joy, this great joy in the Lord, shall then become “our strength”, as it is written. For if, through our Jesus Christ, we allow ourselves to be comforted by our dear Father in heaven, to be comforted quite thoroughly, and to have all doubts taken away from our hearts, so that our hearts may be made quite certain of His grace, then we will walk the way of His commandments with joy. When a heart rejoices, oh how quickly, how quickly, everything happens; but when it is sad, it is as if there is lead on your feet. Let your heart then be filled with joy in the Holy Spirit over the Son of Man, over Him, your most faithful friend, so that you may learn to say: The child is mine, yes, mine is all His merit, mine is His innocence, mine is His obedience, mine is all that He has done and suffered and acquired for me — and you will find out how cheerfully you will walk in His ways. Yes, you will fly up like an eagle and wait and hasten to the coming of the day of the Lord; and it will not be difficult for you to deny the ungodly nature and the worldly lusts and to live chastely and righteously and blessedly in this world. For the grace of God in Christ Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, changes the whole heart, it takes away the heart of stone and creates the heart of flesh, and then, by the grace of the glorious King of Grace, the royal law of the living God is written with the finger of the Holy Spirit into the tablets of the heart of flesh, so that one willingly serves Him in holy adornment. This is my most fervent wish for you and for me, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, and this (page 64) is God's will and merciful commandment, that we poor sinners, who are very poor and wretched in ourselves, and whose conscience must bleed for our many sins and iniquities, believe in the Son of God and rejoice greatly, so that our joy may fill our whole heart. Yes, this is what our God wants, that whoever sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life. And if we now pray, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,” [Matt. 6:10] and pray in the name of Jesus, it will be by the power of the Holy Spirit that we shall rejoice exceedingly, and be joyful and blessed and merry as children float through the valley of tears, towards that everlasting joy, when we shall see Him as He is, face to face. May He, who opened Paradise again, help us all in grace for the sake of His wonderful love! To Him be glory and praise now and forever! Amen.
Yea, Lord, Thou art worthy to receive praise, honor and glory and adoration forever and ever. Thou hast come down; thou hast become poor for our sake, though thou art the richest of all; thou art our mediator; thou art the lamb appointed by God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Thou hast paid the whole debt, my Lord Jesus, down to the last farthing, hast taken away all reason for sadness and fear and terror, and hast become the source of holy, blessed, eternal joy. Oh my Lord Jesus, forgive us that we still do not really believe the great, godly mystery of thy incarnation; O, take away everything that still hides and covers our eyes; let us look into it, dear Lord Jesus, into the abyss of thy merciful heart and help us to believe in thy name completely, so that we may give thee the honor and always rejoice over thee! Yea, my Lord Jesus, the joy of thee must fill our whole heart; where we walk and where we stand, this joy must burn in our heart like a bright light; and through the blessed joy of thee make us strong to curse the sin, to renounce the world and to live only for thee, who was born for us and who opened the heavens and made us acceptable to thy dear Father. O Lord Jesus, let the proclamation of the great joy that hath rung out today be directed in the power of the Holy Spirit, to which thou sent it, for the sake of thy exalted name of Jesus! Amen.
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