Jesus’ Knock: Advent with Rembrandt and Bonhoeffer
- smegburke
- Dec 11, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 8
On the first Sunday of Advent in 1928, Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached from Revelation 3:20 on Jesus' knock, (echoing Matthew 25:34-40):
...he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you. That is the great seriousness and great blessedness of the Advent message…
Amidst all the bustle of the season I am apt to miss Jesus' appeal. In the busyness of gift shopping, in the glow of lights and storefronts, I overlook the child in rags in a manger and likewise the young woman asking for spare change for something to eat. Yet if Bonhoeffer is right, the people we encounter may ask something of us, but also offer a word or a call from God.
Before Jesus’ knocking, earlier in the message to the Laodicean church, He warns that they are mistaking themselves as rich when truly they are in want, lacking the gold refined by fire that He offers (v. 17). How often I long for what passes for prosperity, things that can’t withstand God’s refining. This child in the manger continues to overturn our comfortable assumptions, what looks like prosperity may not be.
I came across some Rembrandt prints that could be seen to illustrate Bonhoeffer’s sermon. Bonhoeffer was fond of the artist, in part for his depictions of humans in their vulnerability. In the etchings, we’re placed at various thresholds alongside an assortment of visitors. In ‘The Strolling Musicians’ the child looks most amused and amenable to the entertaining guests. The parents are stern, perhaps more aware of what is being asked of them.
In ‘The Schoolmaster’ the lady at the door seems merry and receptive to the gift of the visit, and a rapt child looks up from the shadows. I hope I am like this woman and child in my encounters with people who cross my path, remembering Jesus is at the door. I also hope I meet with kindness like theirs when I approach others with my needs.
And so this Advent, I’m grateful to Rembrandt and Bonhoeffer for showing what it might look like to expectantly await Jesus, to attend to each person I meet hearing Jesus’ knock.
Image Credits:
Sources:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Jana Riess,God Is in the Manger : Reflections on Advent and Christmas, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010.
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