Thielecke: the dark night

Thursday, February 5, 2015
    Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597
Meditation:
    [Jesus:] “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
    —Matthew 6:6 (NIV)
Quotation:
    Over all the world there reigns a night so dark that hope seems quite impossible. This is the prophets’, the Bible’s picture of the world.
    And here, against that background, we are given the news, no, not only the “news,” it is actually demonstrated to us in the fact of “Jesus,” that this hope nevertheless is there, miraculously and incomprehensibly there—and that the heart of a Father is beating for us.
    Everything that this Jesus says, and what is more, everything he does is the reflection, the reverberation of that heart. Every one of his sayings is a pastoral, brotherly address.
    ... Helmut Thielicke (1908-1986), Our Heavenly Father, tr. John W. Doberstein, New York: Harper & Row, 1960, p. 22-23 (see the book)
    See also Matt. 6:6-15; 2 Sam. 22:29; Ps. 112:4; Isa. 9:2; John 1:4-5; 3:19; 12:46; Eph. 2:11-13; 6:12; 1 Pet. 2:9
Quiet time reflection:
    Father, in Your Son, we hope. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
    search    script    mobile
sub    fb    twt