HOLY LAND
ADVENTS DIARY 2003

EPILOGUE, Dec. 23, 2003, by Rev. Mitri Raheb

"Greetings from Bethlehem: Christmas, Peace and the Wall"
Bethlehem

[Raheb is pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church and director of the center that hosted the group visit during Advent and manages the Bethlehem Media Center, www.bethlehemmedia.net, that LWR supports.]

Dear Friends,

Our Christmas message this year might sound a little unusual. For many it might not be too "Christmas-y. "  Christmas has become the feast of "a sort of peace" that no on e here can really fully describe. In fact, it is kind of a "cheap peace," a bit  of wishful thinking, when one is not ready to do much. Personally, I am bored with all of this talk about peace around Christmas time. Christmas has become a season for "joyful peace talkers," rather than "blessed peacemakers". In our Palestinian context, "peace talk" is often a recipe for managing the conflict rather than resolving it. 

As the world continues to talk peace, Israel continues to build the wall and while Christians continue singing "O little town of Bethlehem", Israeli authorities make sure that this town stays as little as possible. As little as two square miles, surrounded with walls, fences and trenches with no future expansion possibilities whatsoever.

No one understood what peace really is like better than St. Paul.  A Jewish leader, a zealot, a persecutor, and a hard liner; he committed himself to making sure that a wall of separation was built and kept between his community and its enemies. He was ready to attack and even terrorize whoever dared to question the importance of this wall for the security of his community. 

However, this same radical person was radically transformed. He had a unique encounter that made him discover what peace really means, and he described it as "breaking down dividing walls of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14.)  From that moment, the zealous persecutor Saul became the passionate apostle Paul. His great discovery was that if God himself in Christ has broken the walls of hostility between the human and the divine, then there is no place for walls between peoples, tribes, cultures and nations. For his conviction, he was ready to pay a heavy price.

At a time when a wall of hostility is being built around our little town, we at the International Center of Bethlehem  commit ourselves anew to breaking down all walls of hatred and hostilities, be it concrete walls or ideological, racial, political, social, and economical ones. From the hometown of Christ we have no other message this year but this of St. Paul: "For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us". We wish you nothing less than to experience this transforming power of Christmas to strengthen you in 2004 in your commitment to breaking down walls, to peacemaking and to bridge building. 

Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb
Pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church
General Director of the International Center of Bethlehem

<< Return to Holy Land Visit Advent Diary