Saints 01: Jürgen Moltmann

Redemption Church KC Sermon Podcast

1. In the first sermon in this year’s Saints series, Tim taught about Jürgen Moltmann’s life, work, and theological legacy.
What jumped out at you during this sermon and its stories? What ideas impacted you or caught your attention? What were some of the big ideas you heard as you listened?
2. When Moltmann, interred in a POW camp, first read the Bible, and read about Jesus’ cry from the cross, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” he thought, “here is a fellow who understands me.” He described Christ as “…the divine brother in need, the companion on the way…the fellow sufferer who carries you, with your suffering.”
Consider this view of Christ. To what extent does this align with the way you tend to this of the Son? Is there anything in this description that feels particularly resonant for you? Anything that feels kinda off? What, if anything, might you modify, add, or subtract to articulate your own sense of Christ more closely?
What emotions or thoughts are prompted in you when you spend a little time considering Christ through this lens? Does the hope that surfaced for Moltmann feel relatable? Accessible?
3. Following are three of the Moltmann quotes Tim shared. Read through them as a group (all at once or one-at-a-time), and discuss your thoughts on each. What’s stirred up for you? How is your sense of hope impacted? What resonates with your own experiences of hope and/or its absence?
Is there anything here you needed to hear or of which you often need to be reminded? Is there anything in these words that inspires intention or action within yourself?
“Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present.”
“Hell is hopelessness.”
“[the cross] encounters us as the great promise of our life and this world: nothing will be in vain…We are called to this hope, and the call often sounds like a command - a command to resist death and the powers of death, and a command to love life and cherish it: every life, the life we share, the whole of life.”