From the Worldwide Faith News archives www.wfn.org
Easter 2005 Message from Jerusalem
From
Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>
Date
Thu, 24 Mar 2005 18:05:06 -0800
Easter 2005
Al-Masih Qam Hakkan Qam!*
Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
We share with you greetings of Easter joy from the place of Resurrection!
"I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus said. Through the life-giving
grace of the new life in Christ we all live and move and have our being.
God's mighty act is at once a victory over sin and death and a triumph over
all that binds humankind. Yet the first century shouts of "Hosanna!, the
urgent pleas to Jesus from those who lined the road into Jerusalem to free
us now, are still echoed by the prayers of those who continue to suffer
here. The pain of oppression is as real now as it ever was in this Holy
Land. Our joy may give us confidence that we can always trust in God's
ultimate sovereignty, but in the meantime the failings of ordinary men and
women create the weight of injustice.
The renewed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have rekindled a
spark of optimism that people might live in true peace in this land where
so many have died, and so many more have lost land and hope and future. Yet
there is little rejoicing.
The "Separation Wall" continues its way to completion around Bethlehem
and its neighbors. It serves not only as a prison barricade for the
Palestinians who live under its all-seeing eye, but also as a gargantuan
obstacle to a just peace. The people of Jalame and Bardale and Jayyous
watch as more and more of their land is taken. The people of Beit Hanina
and Ramallah are cut off a little more each day from their neighbors. It is
apparent that the promised freedom of movement for residents of the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, is circumscribed in reality by fences,
roadblocks, and Israeli soldiers barely out of high school wielding
automatic weapons. As has happened so often in the past, peace talks and
negotiations divert the world's attention from the on-going building of new
illegal Israeli settlements and the appropriation of Palestinian land and
rights.
So how is it that we send greetings of Easter joy from a place where
darkness seems to be all around us?
We can only answer that God's light shines the brightest in the
overwhelming darkness of human sin and oppression. On the first Easter
morning the women who loved Jesus walked to his tomb in the shadow of both
the city wall and the Roman occupiers. They came only to offer a last
measure of respect and mourning. They came in fear and in sorrow. They
expected to find armed soldiers and opposition or, at the very least, a
heavy stone blocking their way to the one they had loved. Yet they found
not death, but life! Not despair, but joy! They came to anoint a body. They
ran from the tomb to tell everyone they encountered that God had prevailed.
It is exactly that truth that lays the ground for our joy. And it is our
trust in the bringer of joy - the Christ of Easter - that leads us to know
that God is not defeated by mortal deeds. We rejoice in the fact that God
has commissioned all of us to follow the women who ran from the empty tomb
to spread the news of God's victory. We are strengthened by the hope that
you will commit yourselves to speak and act against injustice in all its
forms - and that you will join us in proclaiming the Good News that life is
not found in oppression or human might&that life is not found in one's
self-proclaimed superiority&that walls and tears do not bring peace. God
has caused light to shine in our darkness, "&and the life was the light of
all people." [John 1: 4b]
Al-Masih Qam Hakkan Qam!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
(*traditional Arabic Greeting of local Christians shared during Eastertide)
Rev. Alex and Brenda Awad
General Board of Global Ministries
United Methodist Church
Douglas Dicks
Presbyterian Church (USA) Regional Liaison
Israel, Palestine and Jordan
Nancy Dinsmore
Development Officer
Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem
Holly & Allyn Dhynes
Quakers working in Jerusalem
Kathy Kamphoefner & Paul Pierce
Quaker Service-Jerusalem
Janet Lewis
General Board of Global Ministries
United Methodist Church
Rev. Sandra Olewine
United Methodist Church Liaison
General Board of Global Ministries
Rev. Russell O. Siler, pastor
English-speaking congregation
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
Rev. Glenn Edward Witmer, B.A., M.Div., Th.M.
Israel Liaison - North American Mennonite Churches
Jerusalem
Andrew Willis
Missionary
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
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