Erich Hunziker

God is good. His good­ness is a gift and does not have to be ear­ned. But the­re are moments when God’s good­ness remains hid­den from us, times when God seems to turn against us. The pro­phet Jere­mi­ah descri­bes har­ro­wing nega­ti­ve expe­ri­en­ces he has with God. But he main­ta­ins that the­re is still a «rem­nant» of God’s good­ness and shows the way in which he «taps into» this rem­nant… It is a word from the book of Lamen­ta­ti­ons that we… 
John the Bap­tist makes it clear that apart from the usu­al Christ­mas pre­pa­ra­ti­ons, the­re are a few other things that are important in view of the coming Lord: As a forerun­ner of Jesus, he calls for rep­en­tance and con­ver­si­on. He pro­claims the Saviour and shows that the way to the glo­ry of God leads through him, the cru­ci­fied Christ. As an evan­ge­list, he does not cudd­le, but speaks plain­ly and radi­cal­ly rejects any form of pious hypo­cri­sy. Advent, this time befo­re Christ­mas, is for… 
A para­ly­tic expe­ri­en­ces heal­ing and for­gi­ve­ness of his sins through Jesus. He comes to this expe­ri­ence becau­se he has fri­ends and neigh­bours who help him. They have a heart for him. They car­ry him to Jesus and do not give up despi­te obs­ta­cles. They firm­ly belie­ve that Jesus will help and thus beco­me a bles­sing for the para­ly­sed man. This mor­ning we want to reflect tog­e­ther on a sto­ry that you pro­ba­b­ly all know very well. It is the sto­ry of the…