Through Mary’s simple faith she received the spirit and thus conceived Christ, and he was born of her. Those who want to be reborn must, like Mary, first hear the Word and then believe it. And then, in the humility of Jesus and of Mary, we must learn to occupy the most modest human place in loving, devoted, long-suffering and in the freedom of joy.
- Eberhard Arnold
April 27,2025
- Eberhard Arnold From a letter, May 1920How glad I am that you are so positively united with me in the experience of peace and of Jesus’ spirit of love! The question is not at all one of our only refusing to do military service, though people always put it in this negative way. This refusal, after all, follows as a matter of course from a positive experience of the Spirit of Christ. When this Spirit, which is expressed so very intensely in the Sermon on the Mount and in Romans 8, penetrates us and glows in us, then we will become victorious people who must work as long as it is daylight—work in the productive, creative work of love.
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The light of Christ’s coming and of his future becomes especially evident by way of contrast with the dark state of the present world. Such contrast brings the nearness of Christ’s coming: The light shines into the darkness, which does not receive it; yet neither can the darkness overcome the light.
- Eberhard Arnold
In Christ – and particularly the Christ child – all human pride was cast down, and all degradation was raised up. Mary and Elizabeth had already recognized this in their songs of praise before the birth of Jesus. And why? Because the love of God cannot be revealed in any other way. When the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the early Christians, no one was able to keep his possessions to himself anymore.They surrendered everything – just as Jesus did at his birth.
- Eberhard Arnold