Through a reinterpretation of “The Need and Promise of Christian Preaching”, Barth’s well-known lecture from 1922, three lines of inquiry are explored, as a way to test the relevance of Christian proclamation in a late modernity which has become “liquid”, tending to evacuate the question of the real from the human horizon. The article begins by examining the relation between the Scriptures as a stable datum and the Word as uncontrollable event, in the context of a certain attraction, in certain quarters, towards firm identities (“tentation identitaire”). Second, in relation to the anthropological question of the constituting of human subjects, the notion of grace is considered, as an expression of the mystery which human beings remain to themselves. Finally, the notion of seriousness is considered. This legacy from Kierkegaard invites us to confer to Christian preaching a certain gravitas, thereby allowing to cultivate a sense for the impossible—which is the only way to render fruitful the realm of possibilites.