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To the strains of the oceanic anthem “Pasifika,” Bread for the World held a celebratory church service under the motto "Drawing Strength for Life.” Marking the 67th such campaign, the service was held in the Durlach City Church and broadcast live.
The service was led by Rev. Dr Dagmar Pruin, president of Bread for the World; and Bishop Heike Springhart, bishop of the Evangelical Church in Baden. Participants included Rev. James Bhagwan, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches.
A three-part sermon during the celebratory service combined a verse from the Book of Amos, "Let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream," with current political tensions and global issues of justice.
Pruin focused her sermon on the question of justice. She connected with current debates on growing social inequality and the need to create just conditions. She described how the prophet Amos portrays justice as the divine order. "People fill this divine order with life, fill it with action. Only then does justice become effective – it is a relational process," Pruin said during the service.
With regard to the issues of water and climate justice, this justice remains unfulfilled for many people today. Over two billion people lack access to clean drinking water, even though this access is recognized as a fundamental human right. And the consequences of climate change are unjustly distributed – those who did not cause it suffer the most.
In his sermon, Bhagwan reflected that, for Pacific communities, water has long been an existential threat – due to rising sea levels, environmental destruction, and polluted rivers. Advent, Bhagwan said, refutes the notion of powerlessness: Every decision regarding energy, consumption, household management, or politics either promotes or hinders justice.
“Forgive debts that stifle the construction of necessary infrastructure! Stop investments that destroy forests, rivers, and coral reefs; protect women and children from the violence that accompanies displacement and forced migration,” Bhagwan urged.
Springhart described how she sees the withered hopes of our time reflected in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, in Sudan, and in the everyday lives of many people. Advent, however, is a time of shared hope and action: God's justice brings the marginalized into the center and reaches those whose lives are marked by fear, poverty, and hopelessness. "Let us enter this Advent season strengthened by the living water. As people who create space for the streams of justice. As people who allow themselves to be moved by God's love. As people in whom something of the coming peace already shines forth."
