Barth is characteristically Christocentric, suggesting that "the difficulty of preaching is none other than that of trying to say who and what Jesus Christ is." Yet Barth also points preachers to the primacy of Scripture. Preachers are to expound the inscripturated Word with their own free words, but it is Scripture -- not experience -- which forms the basis and the meaning of the sermon.

As expected, Barth rejects any apologetic role in the sermon. Preaching is not to prove the truth of God, but simply to preach His Word: "There can be no other proof of God than that which God himself offers."

Because of this (and consistent with his absolute rejection of natural theology), Barth rejects any introduction to the sermon. There is nothing introductory for the preacher to say. The Word needs no introduction, only explication. The function of an introduction is to establish some "point of contact" of the gospel with the mundane. But such a point of contact is, as Barth insists, a rejection of the gospel. "Only one kind of legitimate introduction is conceivable. When a scripture reading precedes the sermon, a link can be made with this.... This is the only possible form of introduction. All others are to be rejected in principle."

The incarnation is the central truth of Christianity, and it must be the central theme of the pulpit. "In Christ God has made fallen humanity his own. Faced with the fall, God did not step angrily aside. Instead he has personally united himself with the race. Lost humanity has been called home."

Christocentric preaching requires a consistently Christocentric thrust, "But this does not lie in the enthusiasm, faith, earnestness, or conviction of the preacher. The sermon takes on its thrust when it begins: 'The Word became flesh eph' hapax, once and for all,' and when account of this is taken in every thought."

Barth understood the true directional dynamic of the Christian sermon: "The need is not so much to get to the people as to come from Christ. Then one automatically gets to the people." Barth's words sound almost axiomatic, but much of what passes for preaching in modern American pulpits betrays a reversal of that dynamic. This reversal is found in liberal pulpits, where the worldview of the knowledge-elite is often stroked more than the Word is preached. It is also to be found in some evangelical churches, where therapeutic concerns now take primacy over the Word -- all in the name of "reaching people at the point of their need." Such an approach is, as Barth warned, a gross and tragic misconstrual of the actual need.

The sermon, if it is truly Christocentric, will also be inherently eschatological. The sermon -- like the gospel itself -- is a message of hope. Christian eschatology, asserted Barth, "is none other than Christology." The eschaton, like the incarnation, is unconditional. Preaching, said Barth, is a race, "in the sense of Philippians 3." He expanded: "Preachers who set out from a fixed starting point are the very ones who must press on, who must hunger and thirst, though always with the promise that they will be satisfied. The homiletic art is to speak about the present, about experience, about the new life that has appeared in history, but it may not do so except with a thrust toward tomorrow."