Berlin's Christmas service for homeless at central station

The Berlin City Mission will hold a Christmas service in the center of the main hall at the capital's central station on Sunday. During the Christmas Eve service, which is being held for the 18th time since the opening of the main station in 2006, church bells ring through the loudspeaker system. The congregation sits on simple wooden benches; many people hold plastic bags that contain all their belongings as they sing Christmas carols from a hymn sheet.

Pastor Christian Ceconi, the director of the Berlin City Mission, will give the sermon on Sunday (Christmas is celebrated on December 24 in Germany). Run by the Protestant Church, the nonprofit association is the German capital's best-known provider of projects for homeless people.

Ceconi drew a parallel between the birthplace of Jesus about 2,000 years ago and today. "There were no houses available in Bethlehem," Ceconi said. "There was no place to stay. The shepherds on the outskirts of town were forced to move away."

Ceconi said Mary and Joseph and the shepherds may have seen themselves as insignificant and of no importance to anyone, but suddenly they found themselves "at the center of world history."

"A train station is always a place of transition, where people come together who would otherwise never meet," Ceconi said. "And, in the middle of it all, they meet God, just like the shepherds back then in Bethlehem."

Ceconi said he saw "a variety of totally different people" when he looked at the congregation at the main station in 2022. "There were a lot of homeless people sitting there that I might also meet when I get off the S-Bahn in the morning," he said. Other people there included travelers and workers for the national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn. "From homeless people to railroad managers, I was also touched by this mixture," Ceconi said.

'Words of peace'

Berlin's main station is something of a temple of consumption 365 days a year, with supermarkets and boutiques, stores and fast-food restaurants. And then, on Christmas Eve, it becomes a cathedral for a good hour.

Unlike airports, large train stations in Germany do not generally have religious spaces or chapels. And yet the setting in Berlin almost looks as if it was made for a Christmas Eve celebration: The wooden benches stand next to a huge fir tree covered in thousands of LED lights. A wreath hangs in front of the huge glass facade, and the escalators behind the simple altar at the center of the celebration stand still for the duration of the service. As congregants sang on Christmas Eve 2022, two floors up trains from western cities such as Cologne and Amsterdam rolled onto platform 11.

Berlin's central station is "a place of everyday life, of welcome and farewell, of frustration and joy," Monika Jung, the manager of Berlin's long-distance train stations, told DW. At Christmastime, the building shines in a festive light. "The magic of this special place is completely fulfilled when songs and words of peace fill the room," Jung said. Travelers and employees can "enjoy the moment and forget that life in the station really never stands still."

When the service is over, volunteers from Berlin City Mission stack the wooden benches, clear away the barriers, offer hot tea and look after guests who may not yet have a place to stay for the night. "For me, all those sitting there are the shepherds," Ceconi said. "After all, of all those present at the birth of Jesus Christ, the shepherds were probably the ones who least expected to make an appearance in such a story. But, at the manger, they belonged. And they could feel: God is coming to me."

People who are homeless often live in the shadows of society, Ceconi said, "and if God wants to bring light into the darkness at Christmas, then he first comes to the people in the shadows of society."

This article was originally written in German.

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