Albert Einstein:“Once you can accept the universe as something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something … wearing stripes with plaid is easy.”

With the Advent and Christmas season, Christians are preparing for the coming of their Lord and Saviour into this world. Even many non-Christians have adapted the season and enjoy gift-giving, decorations, special meals, and other traditions.

The Jewish community is looking forward to Hanukkah around the same time, a festival of lights and gifts as well. We know that people of all times and cultures had their religions, worshipping and hoping that their lives may not be insignificant, but be connected in a bigger scheme. But does it make sense in the 21st century to still believe in a God?

We have modern science to explain many phenomena around us, and we all trust its findings in everyday situations. We would not jump off a high building, hoping that gravity does not apply to us.

Superheroes may defy natural laws in movie special effects, and wizards like Harry Potter may run intentionally into a brick wall believing to get to Platform 9¾, but we don’t. All of us trust the laws of nature and thus expect ships to float, wheels to roll and planes to fly.

We know about germs and medications, electricity and genetics. Some might argue that religious beliefs and science contradict each other, like when it comes to the beginning of the universe and life on Earth (Big Bang Theory and evolution versus creation).

To me this discussion is of little help. The question whether there is a God (or several) behind all that is, is not the same as how that God may have made or created the world.

The creation story of the Bible is not an assembly instruction like “Create Your Own World For Dummies”. The Bible even gives two very different accounts of creation, one right after the other (Genesis 1:1. to 2:4a and Genesis 2:4b to 2:25) with a totally different order of things.

For ancient people those two stories were not a contradiction. They looked for the story behind the story, the deeper meaning in these stories. The question “why?” or “for what purpose?” was much more important than “how?” It’s about relationship, about connectedness.

Imagine the Bible began with a scientific account: “In the beginning, 13 billion years ago, the masses of all atoms were concentrated in one point, then God separated them in a Big Bang to form the universe and there was lots of energy (light), and God saw that the energy was good …”

An illiterate shepherd 3,000 years ago, who could hardly count his sheep without his fingers or tallies, would have said: “What are you talking about? What is a billion, more than a handful? What are masses, atoms, energy and a universe?”

He did not care about all that information. He wanted to know: is there a God who has an interest in me? Does my life with all its joys and pains have a meaning? Am I here for a purpose or is it all useless?

Humans of all times and ages struggled with those questions. Modern science has a different function. Science helps us solve problems, but it cannot give meaning to life, because it cannot answer existential questions.

It refers to matter, but what really matters in life is not matter but relational: love matters, and so do trust, meaning, hurts, dreams, truth … That is why it is useless to try to find scientific proof for or against God.

If there is no God, what is life all about? If our mind and soul were dependent on the physical matter of the body, wouldn’t our existence just be “ … a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal”?

About a decade ago sitting on a park bench in Germany with my wife Diana, a stranger asked to sit with us. After some chit-chat he suddenly asked me: “If you died, would you kind of like to be around for a couple more minutes, and hear what people would say about you? I mean, I don’t believe in life after death, but I think that would be interesting.”

I answered: “If you don’t believe in life after death, those ten minutes would be useless, as there would not be any ‘you’ to even think about it.” His mouth dropped open and he said: “I never thought of it that way.”

I personally believe: God is real. He is interested in a relationship with us and that there is life after death. I know others who don’t believe that. Believing does not make me a better person, but it makes my life better, at least for me and for now.

Do I have proof? No, I just trust the witness of hundreds of men and women and their experiences with that God which are told in the Bible. They didn’t sugar coat it.

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, Cain killed Abel, Abraham repeatedly tried to fix things himself instead of trusting God, Jacob was a cheat, his sons sold their brother Joseph into slavery, Moses killed a man in anger, David committed adultery, the disciples argued who was the greatest, Peter denied Jesus three times, and Judas even sold his master for 30 pieces of silver. Before the apostle Paul had his conversion, he was a persecutor of the young church. But they all gave authentic witness of God’s action in their lives.

With millions of believers before me, I believe that this God wanted us to be here and loves us so much that he came into this world in Jesus to have a relationship with us, to free us from anything that might separate us from him.

God’s son was born to otherwise insignificant parents, in an insignificant stable, in an insignificant corner of the Roman Empire to make our lives significant and meaningful. And that gives me hope, peace, joy and love, the themes of the four Advent Sundays.

Have a blessed Second Advent.

• Karsten Decker is a German theologian with a double degree equivalent to an MTheol and MDiv. He studied in Marburg (Germany), Knoxville (USA), and Toronto (Canada) and comes from a united church of Lutheran and Reformed Churches. He was the pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Bermuda from 2010 to 2017, and after returning from Germany is now the temporary pulpit supply at Centenary Untied Methodist Church in Smith’s. He and Diana (MSSW), his wife of 37 years, have the counselling practice Integrated Family Counselling Ltd in Hamilton, focusing on relationship issues