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

In the course of the centuries people everywhere have possessed a joyful, holy expectation of a time when justice and love will prevail. Often it is only a hidden longing for unity with others. Yet through every century runs the thread of this secret hope for a time when peace and justice will come, when the Eternal One will rule completely. There is no culture on earth that has not carried this hope deep in its heart.…And again thousands of years have passed, and here and there humankind has felt and received something of the mysterious radiance of his birth.

- Eberhard Arnold