Christmas Eve in Berlin

Bells in the distance. Time approaching midnight. Sara and I are eating a German cake version of the illustrious American jelly doughnut. We are spending this Eve of Christmas with three Germans and four Americans. We just got done with the cheese fondue and Schnaaps shots for dropping our bread in the pot. Laughter has bridged our way to the couches, and we now sit and eat the jelly as we read our way through the Luke 2 story of Jesus, pausing to sing traditional German hymns, some of the tunes familiar, some of them not. When we finish, we layer our bodies and step into the cold night. Bells, again, in the distance, this time we focus on them. They are calling the surrounding houses, people form their couches, to come. We walk. It is dark. Our breath rises in the dim light from post lamp corners and living rooms spilling out. We walk in silence. The bells grow louder. We turn the corner into a large courtyard, and there she sits, the second largest Lutheran church in Germany. Her walls tower over the landscape, twin columns rising beyond the light. The bells inside swing and ring. They chime in powerful full and half tones. Inside, the people are gathered and quiet, still, waiting. Sara and I comment, in slight, in silence, What a wild and wonderful, yet familiar Christmas. Gathered halfway across the world, celebrating the coming of Christ with Germans and whoever else is presented tonight in this fancy dome with perfect acoustics, the use of which are tested in between Scripture and singing by a solo saxophone. He walks through the space carefully. He plays a responsive piece, a call and an echo. It seems to me in meditation that God is calling peace into the world, and the people offer back in thanksgiving. Single notes ring. Silence. Broken by a cacophony of short staccatos and again, silence. It is worshipful. How did we end up here?  This Christmas, so far from home, yet, in some way, home. The service ends, and we the people file out into the cold night again. A brass band is playing German tunes, and the people are dancing. The light is dimmer. The night is colder, and we walk into it.

Christ comes. He came. And is coming again, to collect his family. A reminder this season, to be ready. 

Merry Christmas.