wfn.org | Easter Message - Bishop Munib Younan Jerusalem

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church  (ELCJ)
P.O.  Box 14076, Old City Jerusalem 91140, via Israel
The ELCJ serves in Palestine, Jordan and Israel
www.holyland-lutherans.org
ga_elcj@netvision.net.org

EASTER	MESSAGE  April 20, 2003
   by
Bishop Dr. Munib A. Younan
The Lutheran Bishop in Jerusalem

WHO WILL ROLL THE STONE AWAY?

Easter Gospel:	Mark 16:1-8

	As the Christian Church celebrates Easter this year, I have been
asked, 
"What kind of message will you offer your people?  What viable hope can you 
give?"	On this Easter Day I feel as if I am walking with the three women - 
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.  I feel I am walking 
with them to the tomb of the crucified Jesus, and a big stone has been 
rolled in front of the cave to protect the body from predators.  I feel I 
am going with the three women to perform the traditional anointing of the 
dead Jesus.  As I approach the burial cave early Sunday morning with Salome 
and the two Marys, I ask with them:
WHO WILL ROLL THE STONE AWAY FROM THE ENTRANCE OF THE TOMB?

	    The big stone was far too heavy for the women to move - this 
stone which represented the finality of death and the heavy questions which 
faced Jesus' followers.  What would happen now?  Would the soldiers arrest 
them also?  Would they end up on a cross themselves?  Where should they 
go?  What should they do?  Every question was filled with hopelessness.

	We live in hopeless situations.  We have more than one stone to roll
away, 
and so we ask:	WHO WILL ROLL AWAY THESE STONES?

	The Iraqi war is one of those stones and it is huge and heavy.	It is

creating a big divide between the cultures.  Some say, "This is a religious 
mission to liberate Iraq."  Others say, "It is a religious task to fight 
against the invaders."	It seems that some like to read the war as a fight 
among religions.  What will happen with Christian-Muslim relations that we 
have built for a long time?  No wonder we are filled with 
hopelessness.  Just when we thought we had succeeded in bringing mutual 
understanding among cultures and civilizations, we see the huge stone in 
front of us.  WHO WILL ROLL AWAY THIS STONE?

	We as Palestinians have suffered for a long time under military 
occupation.  Now and then we have had a glimmer of hope but soon realized 
we are still living under occupation.  We feel like our Lord, who also 
suffered injustice at the hands of world powers.  We feel now as if there 
is more suffering, more death, more destruction than before.  We do not see 
that our situation will be healed soon.  What can I say to people whose 
houses have been demolished in the Gaza Strip and in Ramallah and Tulkarm 
and Jenin?  What can I say to a mother who has lost one of her 
children?  What can I say to a man who has lost his job and cannot provide 
food for his hungry family?  What can I say to parents who are maltreated 
at checkpoints as they try to go to work?  What can I say to people who 
have to live with a newly built fence that is eight meters high and must 
stay behind that fence?  What can I say when I see that hatred is deepening 
due to all these circumstances, and the spiral of violence is 
increasing?  We Palestinians cry out with the Marys and Salome, WHO WILL 
ROLL AWAY THIS MASSIVE STONE?

	As I watch the Israeli society and how people live in fear, I see
that 
their fear drives them to impose harder and harder security measures upon 
Palestinians.  When I see the fear of Israelis and their reactions to it, I 
sometimes ask in my naivety, "Why can't they be serious in ending the 
occupation by themselves and thereby live in security with their 
Palestinian neighbors?"  But sadly, it seems their fear is also deepening 
and this causes even more insecurity.  This is the reason the Israelis also 
wonder and ask, WHO WILL ROLL THIS STONE AWAY?

	It is God who rolls every one of our stones away.  It is God who
gives 
us the beautiful truth that new life and hope await us in Christ our Risen 
Savior.  This is our hope.  It is in God and not in world leaders or power 
and coercion.

	Today, Easter Sunday, from Jerusalem, the city of the Resurrection of

Christ, we declare to the world that our only hope is in the Resurrection 
of our Lord.  We absolutely refuse to succumb to hopelessness but will only 
look to our sure hope in the Living Lord.

	Our God is working among us as certainly as he was working among his 
disciples in this land of resurrection.  God's ways are often surprising to 
us because God works in weakness and vulnerability.  In 2 Corinthians 9 we 
hear this word from the Lord:  "My grace is sufficient for you, for my 
power is made perfect in weakness."  Just when we think everything is 
hopeless, it is exactly there that God is doing God's work most 
powerfully.  When the two Marys and Salome came to the tomb they were 
shocked and broken because they expected to see a closed tomb.	And even if 
some people came to help roll the big stone away, they expected to see 
Jesus' dead body.  But no!  What they saw was the result of God's power, 
working in a totally unexpected way!

	
	God has never abandoned us.  Even with all the stones in place - even
when 
we are feeling hopeless, it is God's hand and God's plan that are working 
for us.  And it is God who empowers us to be witnesses of that truth to the 
world.	We are commissioned and empowered to roll away the stones of fear, 
hopelessness, sadness, depression, injustice, occupation and violence.	God 
calls us to be channels of hope to support one another and to challenge the 
world:	Stop the war!  Stop the hatred!  Stop the bloodshed!  God's love on 
the cross and in Christ's resurrection will continue to be seen and will 
never end.  We are commissioned to give this love and hope to the 
world.	We Palestinian Christians are commissioned to be a Church of hope 
and life, to give hope in a hopeless situation, to teach love in a world 
where it is absent, to teach faith and trust in the Lord even when we 
sometimes feel abandoned by God.  And so the indigenous Church in Palestine 
will continue to be a Church of reconciliation and a Church of resurrection.

	Perhaps we have felt ourselves sinking into hatred, anger and
bitterness 
in the midst of all the harassment, pain, suffering and loss.  We know how 
easily this can happen.  We are human beings who are experiencing 
incredible losses and pain.  Today our Risen Christ is able to work in you 
to change hatred into love, animosity into neighborliness, bitterness into 
trust.	How can this happen?  It happens when we confess our hatred and 
bitterness to God, when we confess that we cannot roll the stone away by 
ourselves.  It is exactly then that God is working in us, working to roll 
the heavy stone away and to replace it with the joy of Easter, with the 
love of God.

	As Palestinian Christians we need at this time of difficulty and 
hopelessness to remain as bridge builders even though the atmosphere and 
the odds make it seem impossible.  We need to continue our insistence on 
dialogue among religions and continue to build more understanding among the 
cultures and civilizations.  We need to teach the world to respect others 
and accept the otherness of the other.	At the same time we need to be 
brokers of building a just peace in the Middle East where Palestinians and 
Israelis can live in their viable states, side by side, peacefully, justly 
and equitably.	This vision for peace must never end, and Jerusalem, the 
city of the Resurrection, must be the mother of the two nations and three 
religions.  This vision also extends to other countries in the
Middle East, that they may also have their sovereignty on their land, to 
have their self-determination, and their opportunities to build their own 
civil societies.

	The Palestinian Christian Church proclaims a message which is very 
different from the world's message.  We cling to Christ and to the very 
real hope of his presence among us and the future hope of seeing all the 
stones rolled away.  God's love poured out upon us is like a flood of 
grace.	Every day we are swimming in that grace, thoroughly soaked in the 
love of God in Christ.	That is how we are able to continue day by day in 
the midst of what the world would call a hopeless situation.

	The good news of Jesus' resurrection is just too good to keep to 
ourselves.  God's Holy Spirit empowers us to shout forth the wonderful news 
- Christ is Risen!  We will not permit war or occupation to divide us.	We 
will not permit human tragedies or spiral violence that creates hatred to 
take away our hope and joy in the Resurrection.

As the Lutheran hymn reminds us:

	"Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and
righteousness.
	 No merit of my own I claim, but wholly lean on Jesus' Name.
	
His oath, his covenant, his blood, sustain me in the raging flood.
	 When all supports are washed away, He then is all my hope and stay.
		 On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, All other ground is 
sinking sand."

	Because we have a living hope in the Risen Savior, we continue our 
resurrection work as witnesses to Christ, as channels of hope and as 
instruments of peace and love.		

		    CHRIST IS RISEN!   HE IS RISEN INDEED!

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