Confirmation, Kieckow, April 9, 1938
While directing the seminary at Finkenwalde, Bonhoeffer had become acquainted with Ruth von Kleist-Retzow and her family, members of the Pomeranian landed aristocracy, who attended the Sunday church services at the seminary. They became dear friends of Bonhoeffer’s and important supporters of the seminary’s work. Ruth von Kleist’s home was from then on a congenial retreat where Bonhoeffer did much of his later theological work.
Mrs. Von Kleist often brought her grandchildren with her to church, and Bonhoeffer confirmed three of them. The confirmation service was held at the manor of her son Hans-Jürgen von Kleist-Retzow, for his son Hans-Friedrich and two cousins. One of the cousins, Max von Wedemeyer, had a sister, Maria, who was considered too young to join the confirmation class but later became Bonhoeffer’s fiancée. She lost both her brother and her father, as well as her cousin Hans-Friedrich, in the war on the eastern front. In August 1941, Bonhoeffer conducted Hans-Friedrich’s memorial service. He preached on Proverbs 23:26, the verse the boy had chosen for his confirmation.
The sentence, “I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief,” that Bonhoeffer includes several times in this sermon is the translation of Mark 9:24 from the Luther Bible.
Mark 9:24: I believe, dear Lord; help my unbelief !
Dear confirmation pupils! This is a very sober word. But it is good that from the very beginning we get used to not bragging about our faith. Faith is not like that. Precisely because all depends today on our really keeping the faith, all desire for great words fades away. Whether we believe or not will be evident every day; protests do not change a thing. You know from the Passion story that Peter says to Jesus: “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you,” and Jesus answers: “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times” [Matt. 26, 34–35]. And the story ends: “And Peter went out and wept bitterly.” [Matt. 26:75]. He had denied his Lord. Great assertions, even if they were said truthfully and were meant seriously, are always closest to denial. May God protect you and all of us from this.
This confirmation day is an important day for you and for us all. It is not an insignificant thing that you profess your Christian faith today before the all-knowing God and in the hearing of the Christian church-community. For the rest of your life, you shall think back on this day with joy. But for that very reason I admonish you to speak and act today in full Christian soberness. You shall not and may not say or do anything on this day that you will remember later with bitterness and remorse, having said and promised more in an hour of inner emotion than a human being can and may ever say. Your faith is still weak and untried and very much at its beginning. Therefore, when later on you speak the confession of your faith, do not rely on yourselves and on your good intentions and on the strength of your faith, but rely only on the one whom you confess, on God the Father, on Jesus Christ, and on the Holy Spirit. And pray in your hearts: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Who among us adults would not and should not pray the same with you?
Confirmation day is a serious day. But truly, you know that it is still easy enough to confess one’s faith in the church, in the fellowship of Christians, your parents, siblings, and godparents, in the undisturbed celebration of a worship service. Let us be thankful that God grants us this hour of common confession in the church. But all of this will only become utterly serious, utterly real after confirmation, when daily life returns, our daily life with all its decisions. Then it will become evident whether even this day was serious. You do not have your faith once and for all. The faith that you will confess today with all your hearts needs to be regained tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, indeed, every day anew. We receive from God only as much faith as we need for the present day. Faith is the daily bread that God gives us. You know the story about manna [see Exodus 16]. This is what the children of Israel received daily in the desert. But when they tried to store it for the next day, it was rotten. This is how it is with all the gifts of God. This is how it is with faith as well. Either we receive it daily anew or it rots. One day is just long enough to preserve the faith. Every morning it is a new struggle to fight through all unbelief, faintheartedness, lack of clarity and confusion, anxiety and uncertainty, in order to arrive at faith and to wrest it from God. Every morning in your life the same prayer will be necessary: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief.
“I believe.” Today, when the Christian congregation acknowledges you as autonomous members of the church, it expects you to begin to understand that your faith must be your very own individual decision. The “we believe” must now grow more and more into an “I believe.”
Faith is a decision. We cannot avoid that. “You cannot serve two masters” [Matt. 6:24], from now on either you serve God alone or you do not serve God at all. Now you only have one Lord, who is the Lord of the world, who is the Savior of the world, who is the one who creates the world anew. To serve God is your highest honor. But to this Yes to God belongs an equally clear No. Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the Holy. Your Yes to God demands a brave No to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.
But it is your very own decision! No one can relieve you of it. It must arise from loneliness, from the solitude of the heart with God. It will be born out of the hot struggles against the enemy in your own heart. You are still surrounded by a church-community, by homes that carry you, by parents who pray for you, by people who help you wherever they can. Thanks be to God for this! But God will lead you more and more into loneliness. God wants to prepare you for the great hours and decisions of your life when no human being can stand by your side and when only one thing is true: I believe, yes, I myself, I cannot do otherwise; dear Lord, help my unbelief.
Dear confirmation pupils, the church therefore expects of you that you will come of age in your dealings with the Word of God and in prayer. Your faith today is a beginning, not a conclusion. First, you must dive into Scripture and into prayer, you alone, and you must learn to fight with the weapon of the Word of God wherever it is needed. Christian fellowship is one of the greatest gifts that God gives us. But God can also take this gift away from us as it pleases God, and has done so already to many of our brothers and sisters today. Then we stand and fall on our very own faith. Someday, however, each and every one of us will be placed in this solitude even if he or she has evaded it throughout life, namely, in the hour of death and the Last Judgment. Then God will not ask you, have your parents believed, but: have you believed? May God grant that in the loneliest hour of our life we can still pray: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Then we shall be blessed.
“I believe, dear Lord . . .” In life, it is not always easy to say, “Dear Lord.” But faith must learn this. Who would not wish sometimes to say: I believe, harsh Lord, severe Lord, terrible Lord. I submit to you. I will be silent and obey. But to learn to say “dear Lord” is a new and difficult struggle. And yet we will have found God, the father of Jesus Christ, only when we have learned to speak that way.
Your faith will be led into difficult temptations. Jesus Christ was tempted as well, more than all of us. At first, temptations will come to you not to obey God’s commandments any longer. They will assault you with great force. Satan, Lucifer, the bearer of light, will come to you, handsome and alluring, innocent and with the appearance of light. He will obscure God’s law and call it into doubt. He will want to rob you of the joy you have in God’s path. And once the evil one has caused us to waver, he will tear our entire faith out of our hearts, will trample it under foot and cast it away. Those will be difficult hours in your life, when you tend to become weary of God’s word, when all is in revolt, when no prayer passes your lips anymore, when the heart refuses to listen any longer.
As certain as your faith is alive, all of this must happen. It must happen so that your faith is tested and strengthened [Heb. 4:15], so that you will be able to cope with increasing tasks and struggles. God works on us through these temptations. God never plays a game with you, you can be confident of that, but the Father of us children wants to make fast our hearts. That is the reason why all of this will come over you. And even if the temptation is very confusing, if our resistance threatens utter collapse, indeed, even if defeat has already arrived, then we may and should cry out with the final remnant of our faith: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. The dear Lord is after all the Father who tests us and strengthens us in such a way. The dear Lord is after all Jesus Christ who has suffered all temptations like us, yet without sin, to be an example and a help for us. The dear Lord is after all the Holy Spirit who wants to sanctify us in this struggle.
Your faith will be tested through sorrow. You do not yet know much about this. But God sends sorrow to us children when we need it the most, when we become too overly sure on this earth. Then a great pain, a difficult renunciation, a great loss, sickness, death, enters our life. Our unbelief rears up. Why does God demand this of me? Why has God allowed this to happen? Why, yes, why? That is the great question of unbelief that wants to suffocate our faith. No one can avoid this calamity. Everything is so perplexing, so dark. In this hour of being forsaken by God, we may and shall say: I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief. Yes, dear Lord, also in the dark, also when in doubt, also in the state of being forsaken by God. Dear Lord, you still are my dear Father who makes all things work for my benefit. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, you yourself have cried out: My God, why have you forsaken me? [Mark 15:34] You wanted to be where I am. Now you are with me. Now I know that you won’t leave me, even in the hour of my need. I believe, dear Lord, help my unbelief.
Your faith will bring you not only temptation and suffering, but above all struggle. Today’s confirmation pupils are like young soldiers marching into war, into the war of Jesus Christ against the gods of this world. This war demands the commitment of one’s entire life. Should our Lord God not be worthy of this commitment? The struggle is already being fought, and you shall now join it. The idolatry and fear of human beings confront us everywhere. But do not think that great words here can accomplish anything. It is a struggle with fear and trembling, for the hardest enemy stands not opposite us but within ourselves. You shall know that precisely those who stood and still stand in the midst of this struggle have most deeply experienced this: I believe, dear Lord (yes, dear Lord!), help my unbelief. And if we, despite all temptation, do not flee but stand and fight, then this is not due to our strong faith and our courage in battle, our valor, but rather it is the sole fact that we cannot flee anymore, because God holds on to us so that we can no longer pull away. God leads the struggle within us and against us and through us.
“Help my unbelief.” God answers our prayers. Amid temptation, suffering, and struggle, God has created a sanctuary of peace. This is the Holy Eucharist. Here there is forgiveness of sins; here is the conquest of death; here are victory and peace. It is not we who have won it. It is God who has done it through Jesus Christ. Righteousness, life, peace belong to God. We exist in unrest, but rest is with God. We exist in strife, but victory is with God. You are called to the Lord’s Supper. Come and receive in faith forgiveness, life, and peace. Ultimately, only this remains for you in the world: God’s Word and sacrament. Amen.