Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life p. 326-327.

 We must ask ourselves: What is the real reason why Christ decided to be born of a virgin? It would have been quite possible for him to be born of a normal marriage; that would not have detractred from his Divind Sonship, which of course is independent of the(p.326) Virgin Birth and would be not at all unthinkable even under other circumstances. The Virgin Birth did not signify any depreciation of marriage and conjugal union. Nor was it required in order to safeguard the Divine Sonship of Jesus. Why, then, did it occur? We find the reason when we open the Old Testament and see how the way was already prepared for the mystery of Mary at decisive points in the history of salvation. The process begins with Sarah, the mother of Isaac, a women who was barren; only when she is well on in years and her vitality has withered does she become by God's power the mother of Isaac and, thus, of the chosen people. The preparation continues with Hannah, the mother of Samuel, who is likewise barren but eventually gives birth; with the mother of Samson; and again with Elizabeth. the mother of John the Baptist. The point of what happens is the same in all these instances: they show that salvation comes, not from Men and their own powers, but solely from God and his gracious action. That is why God intervenes where there is a complete vacuum: he starts at the point where - humanly speaking - nothing can be done. He gives life to the bearer of the promise in the dead womb of Sarah and follows the same pattern through history down to the Lord's birth from the Virgin. The law he follows is spelled out in Isaiah 54:1 (Gal 4:27): "Sing, o barren One, who did not bear: break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not had labor pains! For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her that is married, says the Lord.” p. 327.

 " that will be the divinization of the earth: all that is noble and precious will not pass away but will be transformed and will share in the glory of what is eternal." p. 299 context  

God should be preached as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

“The first signpost for preaching is provided by the fundamental act of becoming a Christian: baptism, which is simultaneously an expression of faith. Baptism occurs in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: this is more than a formula—it is the designation of a new position that man finds in and through baptism. The act of baptism is not only the formal incorporation into a community; it also indicates the content on which this community lives and thereby ex-presses at the same time the path the candidate is adopting in the act of baptism. To put it more pointedly: the goal of baptism is not the community, but the truth—mediated by the community. For this reason, the baptismal formula is intended at the same time to mark the center of Christianity. This center is faith in the triune God. Baptism interprets being a Christian theocentrically. Being a Christian means above all else believing that God exists. This is the most fun-damental option; this is what it is all about, even before any salvation history and ecclesiology. The core of the Christian profession of faith, the core of the Christian existential act lies in the statement: God is.'” p.88

“With that we have arrived at the trinitarian testimony, which is not a marginal feature of Christianity but rather represents its core. God exists as love, which means precisely that he exists as Trinity. As love, he is from everlasting, in himself and by his nature, the fruitful encounter of I and Thou and pricesely in this way the hightest unity.

God is Father. The experience of human fatherhood may give us here an inkling of what God himself is and how he is to us. Thus at the same time, in and through human language, all the reality of man himself is claimed for the knowledge of God. Where fatherhood no longer exists, where real fatherhood with its blend of manly strength, justice, dependability, and heartfelt kindness is no longer experienced, discourse about God the Father becomes empty, too. This is perhaps the real crisis of our image of God, the fact that to a great extent the analogous thing that is supposed to make him effable no longer exists. In this respect, being baptized into the Father and the Son with the Spirit is, of course, another very concrete claim along these lines: opening oneself up to the possibility of buliding human existence in such a way (p.89) that it can become an analogy for God. If we consider, moreover, that the Bible quite deliberately includes in the image of the Father the idea of "Mother" also and means to present a Father in whom the true essence of motherhood is realized as \yell, then this reveals a demand of baptism that is as personal as it is social: to become, in terms of this Father, a father or a mother oneself and thus to make him visible and recognizable in the world; to preserve for it that basic social unit, "family", which is the first name of God. Immediately we must add: no fatherhood on earth can sufficiently depict God's fatherly essence. It always remains more or less ambiguous: when the Greeks called their Zeus "Father", this was by no means striking a note primarily of love and trust; rather, it was saying: This Zeus is an unpredictable despot like human fathers. Calling God Father, in its Christian form, is not the projection of an earthly social (patriarchal) construct onto heaven, the heavenly duplicate of a particular earthly system, but, rather, the divine critique of all earthly states: what a father is, what he ought to be, we learn in the mutuality of this Father with his Son. This dialogue sets a new standard, which overturns all analogies. Thus, an essential law of human discourse about God becomes evident here: the Bible takes up the analogy that presents itself, at first with all its human dross—many depictions of the Old Testament Yah-weh are not all that far removed from the despotic image of the Greek father-god. But you have to begin that way in order to get the discussion going at all. Then gradually, however, this image of the Father is refined, broken down, and finally turned completely upside-down: now God himself sets the standard for the analogy that made the dis-course possible. The main thing now is not that human fatherhood gives some notion of what God is, but vice versa: the dialogue of God as Father and Son defines what fatherhood is and sets a standard for it. This means: the revealing recasting of the human father-analogy, of the human understanding, into a discourse that God himself places on our lips arrives at its goal only at the moment when the whole reality of God's original fatherly essence comes to the fore in the mutuality of Father and Son—that is to say, at the moment when fatherhood is recognized as something belonging to God himself, as trinitarian. Discourse about God the Father becomes complete only through discourse about God the Son. The Son, of course, cannot be p.90 men tioned apart from his becoming man: in Jesus Christ. In this respect, Christian discourse about God must open the way into salvation his-tory. Another consequence is the proclamation of the Holy Spirit: God as fruitfulness, as communication, as unity, as love, and as peace. Normally it cannot be the task of preaching to set out a specula-tive doctrine about the Trinity. It must, however, make God known specifically as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and in so doing—indeed, precisely in this manner—proclaim the uniqueness and unity of God, who is one as fruitful love. (p.91)

"Christian holiness is simply the obedience that makes us available where God calls us to be, the obedience that does not rely on our own greatness but allows our God to bestow his greatness on us and knows that only in service and self surrender cas we truly find ourselves."p. 367.