Positioning Jesus suffering

How do pastors of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands preach on the suffering of Jesus in their local parishes? This empirical homiletical study aims to answer this question. Thirty-four sermons of twelve local pastors were analyzed using grounded theory as a qualitative research method. The sermons were preached on the Sundays in Lent and during Holy Week.


The results of the sermon analysis point out how the participant pastors speak about the salvific work of Christ in a variety of manners. By making use of preaching resources, pastors position Jesus' suffering according to various redemptive arrangements. The positioning of Jesus' suffering is part of their typifying varieties of salvation in the sermon, and leads to a diverse appeal to the listeners.

In this study, a grounded theory of Lenten preaching in local parishes is presented, together with an introduction on the background of the research and an explication of grounded theory methodology.

André Verweij (1959) is a pastor of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands and works in the parish of the Grote Kerk in Lisse. This study is his PhD thesis.