Here the light of eternity shines down on those who are ever neglected, insignificant, weak, ignoble, unknown, inferior, oppressed, despised; here it radiates over the houses of prostitutes and tax collectors… Here the light of eternity has been cast on the toiling, struggling and sinning masses. The word of grace spreads across the stale sultriness of the big cities but it halts before the houses of the satisfied, the knowledgeable, and the ” haves” of this world in a spiritual sense. It speaks over the death of individuals and peoples its everlasting word: ‘I have loved you from eternity; remain with Me; thus you will live.’ Christianity preaches the unending worth of the apparently worthless and the unending worthlessness of what is apparently so valuable. The weak shall be made strong through God and the dying shall live…
And yet the correct meaning of the cross of Christ is nothing else than radical development of the concept of God held by Jesus himself. It is, so to speak, the historically visible form which this concept of God has assumed. God comes to people who have nothing but room for God—and this hollow space, this emptiness in people is called Christian speech, faith. This means that in Jesus of Nazareth, the revealer, God inclines to the sinner; Jesus seeks the companionship of the sinner, goes after him or her in boundless love. He wants to be where a human person is no longer anything. The meaning of the life of Jesus is the demonstration of this divine will for sinners, for those who are unworthy.
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: HarperOne; Revised ed. of 2009), pp.52-53
#DietrichBonhoeffer ‘God comes 2 people who have nothing but room for God-+this hollow space, this emptiness in people is called Christian speech, faith. This means that in Jesus of Nazareth, the revealer, God inclines 2 the sinner https://t.co/gPWAIlHE6K #churchhistory #theology pic.twitter.com/mmykiuZfzh
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 23, 2019