Sermon: 17th Jan '21

Necessary Challenge?

Gospel Reading: Luke 2: 41-52

​Dear Community of Christians,

The story of Job in the Old Testament can still have a useful meaning for us today. Job was a man who was totally devoted to God. Additionally, he was a happy and rich man. He lived in the comfort zone. Then the Tempter got the freedom from the Lord to tempt Job. This theme of testing a pious person and their connection with the spiritual world has been taken up many times in literature.

Consider this possibility:  that the development of earth and man depends on man's connection to God, and that we can add to the primordial forces of creation. The future shaping of the whole Cosmos depends on these World Creative Forces.

In this process of temptation Job lost everything. First his possessions, then he loses his children, and then he suffers from a disease that covers his body with sores. His wife tells him to curse God and his friends are convinced that he must have sinned to experience all this. Actually, it is an experience of Grace. Christ's light radiates into Job's soul, who after all his suffering concludes: I know that my Redeemer lives.

In the midst of our crisis, as we are deprived of the basics of freedoms, we can also ask ourselves, are the losses inflicted on us perhaps necessary tests? Do we get tempted and tested at this time where we are comfortable, and can these tests allow us to progress further on the spiritual path? If we honestly reflect, we may see we live in a comfort zone that prevents further spiritual development. It is a question that can only be answered individually. Then one has to direct their own life steps along the path lit with this new insight.

Rev. Ute Koenig