Status: 12/24/2021 12:58 p.m.
On the second Christmas in the corona pandemic, the major churches call for cohesion. Because of the dispute over vaccinations, there is a rift through many families. The Christmas message is comforting.
The big churches in Germany called for solidarity and commitment to the common good at Christmas. In their sermons and Christmas messages, for example, they mentioned helping refugees and the victims of the flood disaster in parts of Germany. They also called for more consideration in the corona pandemic.
For the second time, Christians are celebrating the festival under the conditions of the corona pandemic: Church services can only take place to a limited extent and with significantly fewer visitors than usual. In many places, only those who have been vaccinated, those who have recovered and those who have tested negative are allowed to come to the churches.
Bedford-Strohm: “A tense Christmas”
In an ecumenical video message, Munich’s Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Reinhard Marx and Bavaria’s Evangelical Regional Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm thanked everyone “who is committed to others at this Christmas time”. As examples, they cited people who work in hospitals, nursing homes or vaccination centers.
Bedford-Strohm reminded that this festival is “for many a tense, a nervous Christmas”. The controversial discussions about vaccination had led to “rifts into the families”. The Christmas message is particularly important at this tense time.
Marx: “God is not a theory”
In his Christmas sermon, Marx also said that the Church’s mission was to celebrate Christmas even in the midst of the pandemic wave. The festival encourages a new search for what God means. The story of Bethlehem wants to tell, “God is not a theory, but God is concrete life! A child, a face that looks at us”.
The Würzburg Bishop Franz Jung spoke of the encouragement given by the birth of Jesus in view of the current crises. He wished people not to despair, “but rather to say the divine yes to this world at Christmas,” said Jung in the Christmas mass. In addition to the climate and corona crisis, he also cited a “totally torn society” as examples. The bishop also remembered people on the run.
Kurschus: “At the mercy of numbers”
The council chairwoman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Annette Kurschus, draws comparisons between the biblical Christmas story and the corona pandemic in her Christmas Eve sermon. The Christmas story begins with a census, that is, “with a pandemic order that affects the whole people,” says Kurschus after an EKD announcement that had been distributed in advance. “Emperor Augustus lets you count. And it doesn’t count whether you can make the way. It doesn’t matter whether you have a child. It doesn’t matter whether you can find a hostel.”
Today people would learn in a way they never knew what it meant to be at the mercy of the power of numbers: “How many infected? How many sick? How many dead? How many intensive care beds? How many ventilators? What is the reproductive number – and how.” the incidence number? ” The power of numbers freezes many with fear, said Kurschus. The Christian Christmas message, however, is that one should have hope in spite of everything.