When a pastor from Tegernsee distributes Easter eggs with the dates of the Christmas services in Advent, it is not a desperate attempt to fill his church.
Rather, he says, the action leads to the essence of Christmas.
Tegernsee - colored eggs are now available all year round.
This may please lovers of this hard-boiled snack - but it annoys others because the boundaries between the seasonal items are becoming more and more blurred.
And if chocolate sticks and chocolate bunnies were next to each other on the shelf in August, hardly anyone would be surprised any more.
In any case, Pastor Martin Weber from Tegernsee is one of those who this year are very grateful for the year-round availability of colored eggs.
The evangelical pastor needs 2500 colorful chicken eggs for the first Advent in the middle of gingerbread and mulled wine.
Why?
He wants to send them, pasted with a Christmas tree and the times of the Christmas services.
Each church member should get one in connection with the new church letter.
In previous years, the pastor from the dean's office in Bad Tölz has already distributed gingerbread, Christmas chocolate, Christmas tree balls and Christmas cucumbers, he says: "I like to work with tangible things that I can also give." I don't see the Church that often, “that's where we should offer something and be good”.
Pastor Weber: "The whole thing is not a gag!"
But Easter eggs for Christmas? Why? "The whole thing is not a gag," says Weber, "but leads to the essence of Christmas." Because Jesus' life, which begins at Christmas, should not be thought of from its beginning, but from its end - that is, from Easter. “Originally only the Easter story was told. The story of the birth of Jesus was the last thing that was written, ”says Weber. But it was not simply written as a report that a special child was born: “The Christmas story is much more”.
It marks the end of what the whole life of Jesus stands for. Everything we learned about Jesus after the resurrection should be part of the story right from the start, says Weber. “Quasi that 'Easter egg in the Christmas tree': Hidden, but still there.” That's why one also wishes a “Happy Christmas”. Because it is not a senseless, superficial event that you celebrate every year "because you just celebrate". It is real because it describes the longing in life, says Weber. Because it shows "that we have a God who is there for us, who knows our life, who supports us, who holds us and who understands when we come to him". And that's because he lived this life himself: from his birth to beyond his end.
Together with volunteers, the pastor has prepared the colorful eggs for his community.
There are 20 hours of work with a total of ten people in there, he says and presents the yellow and orange shining eggs with glittering fir trees and appointment stickers.
What his parishioners will do with the eggs, Weber wants to leave them to them.
“Everyone can decide for themselves whether people eat them, pick them up or hang them up,” explains the pastor.
Anyone who comes to the service will get another egg: "There will also be a lot of guests who do not receive a church letter, and we want to take them with us."
by Brigitte Bitto (epd)
