Second Wednesday in Advent -- Karl Barth
A Reflection on Karl Barth’s To Believe (pp. 132-40)
An old man, Zechariah can’t quite bring himself to believe the angel Gabriel when the angel tells Zechariah that his equally old wife, Elizabeth, will bear him a son. “How can I be sure of this?,” Zechariah skeptically wonders. “I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.” And because of his inability to believe, to hear the truth of the angel’s words, Zechariah is rendered mute for the rest of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, unable to give voice to all that is stirring in his heart.
All of us, Karl Barth suggests, are like Zechariah. We are caught in our own private, little worlds, cut off from others and their experiences. We can’t quite find the words to express our deepest longings, our fears and anxieties, our hopes and dreams. Yes, we communicate on superficial levels, but rarely do we speak deep truth to each other.
Like Zechariah, though, each of us “has a hidden side of our being,” a secret and close connection with God, our own angel Gabriel speaking to us, even if we are unaware of it. Barth urges us to hear God’s Word in what moves within us, as well as what moves within others and within the larger world. “What causes me worry, that is God’s worry, what gives me joy is God’s joy, what I hope for is God’s hope. In other words, in all that I am, I am only a party to that which God thinks and does…. Imagine if everything were brought into this great and proper connection, if we were willing to suffer, be angry, love and rejoice with God, instead of always wanting to make everything our own private affair, as if we were alone.”
With this insight, Barth opens up a remarkable vision of what God’s Kingdom may look like: a community of God’s children who are liberated from the prisons of their own lonely, self-contained worlds, who are able to share openly and without fear their deepest feelings and aspirations, who feel an utter connectedness to others and all Creation, recognizing that we are all in reality participating in the divine life.
What might it be like if we could see, truly see, the divine in our lives as well as those of others?
Karl Barth (1886-1968) is regarded by many to be the greatest Christian theologian of the last century. His thirteen-volume Church Dogmatics is one of the most comprehensive works of systematic theology ever written. Associated with the “neo-orthodox” movement, he resisted tendencies in liberal theology to focus on human experience as the touchstone for understanding God and sought to ground his theology more consistently in the Word of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. He taught at the University of Basel in Switzerland and was part of the resistance movement during World War II.
An old man, Zechariah can’t quite bring himself to believe the angel Gabriel when the angel tells Zechariah that his equally old wife, Elizabeth, will bear him a son. “How can I be sure of this?,” Zechariah skeptically wonders. “I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.” And because of his inability to believe, to hear the truth of the angel’s words, Zechariah is rendered mute for the rest of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, unable to give voice to all that is stirring in his heart.
All of us, Karl Barth suggests, are like Zechariah. We are caught in our own private, little worlds, cut off from others and their experiences. We can’t quite find the words to express our deepest longings, our fears and anxieties, our hopes and dreams. Yes, we communicate on superficial levels, but rarely do we speak deep truth to each other.
Like Zechariah, though, each of us “has a hidden side of our being,” a secret and close connection with God, our own angel Gabriel speaking to us, even if we are unaware of it. Barth urges us to hear God’s Word in what moves within us, as well as what moves within others and within the larger world. “What causes me worry, that is God’s worry, what gives me joy is God’s joy, what I hope for is God’s hope. In other words, in all that I am, I am only a party to that which God thinks and does…. Imagine if everything were brought into this great and proper connection, if we were willing to suffer, be angry, love and rejoice with God, instead of always wanting to make everything our own private affair, as if we were alone.”
With this insight, Barth opens up a remarkable vision of what God’s Kingdom may look like: a community of God’s children who are liberated from the prisons of their own lonely, self-contained worlds, who are able to share openly and without fear their deepest feelings and aspirations, who feel an utter connectedness to others and all Creation, recognizing that we are all in reality participating in the divine life.
What might it be like if we could see, truly see, the divine in our lives as well as those of others?
Karl Barth (1886-1968) is regarded by many to be the greatest Christian theologian of the last century. His thirteen-volume Church Dogmatics is one of the most comprehensive works of systematic theology ever written. Associated with the “neo-orthodox” movement, he resisted tendencies in liberal theology to focus on human experience as the touchstone for understanding God and sought to ground his theology more consistently in the Word of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. He taught at the University of Basel in Switzerland and was part of the resistance movement during World War II.
Isn't speaking our deepest truth to each other the only way to truly connect with each other? or with God?
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