By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Authority rests upon his shoulders” (Isa. 9:6). Authority over the world is supposed to lie on the weak shoulders of this newborn child! One thing we know: these shoulders will come to carry the entire burden of the world. With the Cross, all the sin and distress of this world will be loaded on these shoulders. But authority consists in the fact that the bearer does not collapse under the burden but carries it to the end.

The authority that lies on the shoulders of the child in the manger consists in the patient bearing of people and their guilt. This bearing, however, begins in the manger; it begins where the eternal word of God assumes and bears human flesh. The authority over all the world has its beginning in the very lowliness and weakness of the child.

As a sign of authority over a house, there was a custom of hanging the key across the shoulder of the master of the house. That meant that he had the power to open up and to close up, to let in and to turn away whomever he wanted. This is also the manner of the authority of the one who carried the Cross on his shoulders. He opens up because he forgives sin, and he closes up because he casts out the proud. That is the authority of this child: that he accepts and carries the humble, the lowly, and sinners, but he rejects and brings to nothing the proud, the haughty, and the righteous (Luke 1:51–52).