Advent is something of a liturgical speed bump that slows us down lest we rush to Christmas but forget that the baby born in Bethlehem will return with glory and power to judge the living and the dead.
Preaching in the autumn of the Church Year reminds us that in the midst of death there is life, for the crucified King has been raised from the grave and all who trust in Him will live with Him in a kingdom which has no end.
Confident in the good and gracious will of God revealed not by reason but by Christ, Christians are free for the vocation of citizenship without nationalistic idolatry.
It might be said of Thielicke’s preaching of the parables, he does not throw sticks of dynamite, but sets little time bombs which explode, sometimes in unexpected ways, in the minds and hearts of those who hear him.
Helmut Thielicke had lived on the borderline between life and death enduring a life-threatening illness in his youth and confronting the perpetually present carnage of World War Two. He ministered to a skeptical generation that teetered on the borderline between faith and unbelief.
As Christians, we are given another future. It is not a posthuman epic, but a future given us in the resurrection of the One who is both God and man from the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ.