Preke - Sermons - 2025

Proverbs 8:22-36


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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen

Dear congregation, 

This Sunday is called Jubilate: "Rejoice". We just sang a song: "Our God is an awesome God"

The weekly proverb gives the reason for the rating "Wonderful, awesome" and points out to us why we can rejoice: In Christ, the world is created anew – as if reborn.

And on this day, when something new begins, the sermon text reminds us of an old experience of creation. The sermon text from Proverbs is a creation account that has unfortunately been very much forgotten.

This much in advance: The Book of Proverbs belongs to the so-called "wisdom literature". To be wise and to receive wisdom means to live with an irrepressible power. A strength that makes it possible to get through life - cheerful, confident. Wisdom makes it possible to deal with injuries in such a way that there is life afterwards – a good life.

Wisdom helps wounds to heal and we can look at the scars of these wounds and bear them with dignity. How we deal with wounds and injuries is how we know if we are wise. Jesus showed his healed wounds after the resurrection. That's how his friends recognized him.

But how do we become wise – and where does wisdom come from.This is told in the verses of the Bible that we have just heard and that I read again:

The "I" speaking here is Mrs. Wisdom. The word for this is "Sophia". It is known to us as a beautiful woman's name. Wisdom is also feminine in the Hebrew language. There is a long tradition of imagining wisdom as a woman next to God, similar to the Spirit of God, who in Hebrew is also feminine: the Ruach – the Spirit-inspired power.

So let's listen to Mrs. Wisdom, let's listen to Sophia again:  

Proverbs 8:22-36


22 The Lord had me from the beginning of his ways, before he created anything, from the beginning. 

23 I was appointed from eternity, in the beginning, before the earth was.

24 When the deep was not yet, I was born, when the springs flowing with water were not yet there. 

25 Before the mountains were lowered, I was born before the hills,

26 when he had not yet made the earth, nor the fields on it, nor the clods of the ground.

27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle over the deep, 28 when he made the clouds above mighty, when he made strong the springs of the deep,  

29 When he set his boundary to the sea, and his command to the waters, so that they do not transgress; when he laid the foundations of the earth, 

30 I was always with him. I was his delight every day, and always played before him;

31 I played on his earth, and I delighted in the children of men.

32 So listen to me, my sons. Blessed are those who keep my ways!

33 Hear discipline, and become wise, and do not throw it to the wind.

34 Blessed is the man who obeys me, that he may watch daily at my door, that he may guard the posts of my gates. 

35 He who finds me finds life and is pleased with the Lord. 

36 But whoever misses me destroys his life; all who hate me love death. 


What touches and moves me so much about these words: From the beginning, God was not alone. Wisdom and God, an inseparable couple. It can be found everywhere – especially and after everything. It is constant with God. She is his companion. She dances happily around God and plays on his earthly circle. She cheers God up. She encourages God. She takes joy in people and shares this joy with God.

God has it from the beginning – before he went to work. Wisdom is the soul of God that God breathes into the world and man. The world is thrilled – and it is no wonder that the enthusiasm, the overwhelming amazement, is a first step towards becoming wise.

Take the moment when a small child discovers his world: and is amazed.

Every little thing that gets a child's attention becomes a wonderful experience. There is amazement to be seen!

When was the last time you were so amazed: at Cape Point, when the horizon is so arched in front of you and two oceans meet? If you walk on the beach and find a beautiful shell?

On Table Mountain, where there is a greater variety of plants than in the whole of England? 

In your garden, where the roses bloom so magnificently?

Or when you cooked a meal and were amazed at the deep orange of a carrot?

When have you been as amazed as a child? 

About the mineral resources in the earth?

About the stars in the sky?

About the miracle of holding a small infant in your arms with hands and feet, eyes, ears, mouth and nose?

What wisdom is hidden in all this? What possibilities?

What potential that can unfold if we marvel at all this wisely. To marvel wisely means to be amazed with a reverence for life.

This reverence for life includes experiences of death.

Wisdom does not end in the encounter with the difficult or suffering or even death. The wisdom is also to be found there.

I come back to the idea that God has wisdom at His side from the beginning. A God who is not alone. Kurt Marti, a pastor from Switzerland, the home country of Emma and Martha and their parents, once said it this way: God is a sociable God. God is not alone and this experience then shapes the whole world: "It is not good for man to be alone"

It is not good for a person to be alone, nor does God want to be alone. This is one of the basic ideas of our Christian faith: the strength that comes from the community. Through the study of wisdom, we realize that the longing for community is a quality that we owe to the sociable God: we are his image. Where we dance in the world and experience a lightness, as if we were already detached from everything heavy.Wisdom helps us to become weightless – exposed to gravity, but an experience of being almost in heaven.

For me, confirmation is such a day in my life – where we pause for a moment after the amazed little children have already become teenagers. We accompany them for a year and the goal is to rediscover amazement. The goal of everything we do is to encourage us to become wise and to stay alive in everything and in every situation.

Confirmation was originally even more clearly on the threshold of adulthood. School was then finished. At the age of fourteen, everyday working life began for many in Germany.

Childhood is over.

It is not for nothing that Jesus recommends in the New Testament: Become like children. By this he probably means: maintain the ability to be amazed at life, at your life, at the vitality that can be found in everything, at God and his friend Sophia.

The path of life as a path that makes us wiser – those who take the path in this way have the opportunity to discover God and become wiser on all days, in all places of the world, in every experience.

This is the experience of renewal. As if reborn. Even in difficult situations, to look for this spirit, this liveliness of Sophia.

I encourage you, Emma and Martha, to live this life today: keep your curiosity and joy of discovery. Adopt an attitude towards life that starts from the assumption: everything can serve me for good and in everything I can discover God.

Even if it is sometimes like detective work. Yes, sometimes life leaves you speechless and we humans are overwhelmed by the power of death for a moment. These are the biggest and most difficult challenges.

But today you have heard that wisdom is deeper than any abyss. That wisdom is older than any danger. That wisdom is more alive than death.

"Listen to me," wisdom recommends. Seek me and discover through me a sociable God who has created his world full of love and care. Discover with me God in all things. Discover with me the origin of community.

Where and how does it work? Where to look? Preferably in the community of others: in the community.

This is how I understand the church and the community to which you have belonged since baptism. This is being fortified today. A congregation in which people are there for each other. You are being confirmed today in a congregation, here in the Johannesgemeinde, where people take this seriously. A wonderful experience of church. There are such communities in all countries of the world. Sometimes you have to look for them and also help them to become what they should be. The churches are not perfect. We know that. But despite all this, the church is the place where people are animated and gifted with the Spirit of God.

This is where Sophia and God live. Here they can be found.

I wish you and your family on your journey through life: May you remain wise and become new again and again! So that there is enough reason to rejoice, to dance and play and to be amazed at the many wonders of this world. 

Yes, this is my request for you and us: that we learn to become wise – full of trust in life and in death.

May the peace of God, which is higher than our reason, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

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