The expectation of God’s future is as all embracing as it is unshakably certain; it cannot be a passive waiting, a cozy and soft occupation with self and with one’s small circle of like-minded friends. No, this expectation is divine power – a uniting with the powers of the future that are present here and now. This is our hope: the assurance that the social justice of the future is effective now wherever Jesus himself holds sway.

- Eberhard Arnold

Many will argue that as long as human beings are human, imperfections will result. Granted. But we should never let our longing for what is highest be held back by our imperfections. Herein lies the hope of Advent – a time when we look toward the day when all people shall become brothers and sisters because they are all children, sons and daughters of God. For in this one child, so helpless in the crib, a childlike spirit has been revealed on the earth. And this is the answer to life’s deepest and most difficult questions. He alone fulfills our innermost longing.

- Eberhard Arnold

Let us try to grasp the message of peace and of Christmas, the glad tidings of God’s kingdom. If we look at Jesus, the inconspicuous and lowly one, we begin to understand what expectation and fulfillment truly entail. We begin to grasp that a poor birth in a manger and a humiliating death on a criminal’s cross is the only way expectation can lead to fulfillment.

- Eberhard Arnold