We will report back in our media at the beginning of January 2023. We wish you all a merry Christmas and a good, healthy start into the new year. We look forward to working with you in 2023!
And now we hope you enjoy reading the Christmas greeting.
Christmas greeting 2022
by theologian Dr. Ulf Beiderbeck
“… through the heartfelt mercy of our God,
through which the rising light from on high will visit us,
that it may appear to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
and guide our feet in the way of peace.”(Gospel according to Luke 1:78f., Luther Bible, revised 2017, © 2016 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart)
It is a small excerpt from a great text of world literature. It is the actualization of ancient hope. It is a look into the depth of our humanity.
Darkness … shadow … death. We are coming off a special year. Who would ever have thought that hopes for peace and plans for disarmament could be replaced by rearmament initiatives and the reality of war in just a few weeks?
Darkness … shadow … death. Under the impression of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, so many other conflicts, crises and catastrophes are overshadowed by it. And it is dragging on in many places and globally, which should actually come to an end.
Darkness … shadow … death. Everything also has its individual side and each person has his or her own images from the areas in which he or she lives. After all, it’s not the big picture that obscures life, but its effects on you and those around you.
It is the darkness on the Romanian garbage dumps or in the Greek refugee camps. It is the imaginary shadows that are missing where deserts spread. It is the misery of people whose joy is taken away because life seems to be turned against them.
Light from the height. Light that comes into the darkness so that the shadows pale – light that illuminates the darkness. Light that arrives. And the way of peace. That’s where people set out. Some roads were long and others went next door. They were paths to people. They were and are people who suffer from the contexts in which they live. There were other people who found a way to them.
The small section of world literature comes from the Holy Scriptures of Christians. It draws attention to life and speaks to the longing that lives in all of us. It is the longing for the light that does not leave the darkness itself. It is the hope of the light that visits us in the darkness. And there, where divine and heartfelt mercy becomes tangible and illuminates the darkness, it can arise: the “joy of man”.
A Merry Christmas far & near!
Ulf Beiderbeck
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