First Sunday of Advent: An Advent Journey of Courage
December 1, 2024
Jeremiah 33:14-16 Psalm 25:1-10 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 Luke 21:25-36
Scripture texts are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Lections are from the Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings. The online Revised Common Lectionary is a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, a division of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries.
Keeping Hope Alive: A Christian Reflection from Jerusalem
Patriarch Michael Sabbah
Originally written on October 7, 2024*
After a year of constant war, as the cycle of death continues unabatedly, we feel the need, as Christians and as citizens, to seek out the hope that comes from our faith. First, we must admit that we are exhausted, paralyzed by grief and fear. We are staring into the darkness. The entire region is in the grip of bloodshed that continues to escalate and spares no one. Before our eyes, our beloved Holy Land and the entire region are being reduced to ruins.
Daily, we mourn the tens of thousands of men, women, and children who have been killed or wounded, especially in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon, and beyond in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran. We are outraged at the devastation wreaked on the area. In Gaza, homes, schools, hospitals, and entire neighborhoods are now heaps of rubble. Disease, starvation, and hopelessness reign. Is this the model for what our region will become?
Around us, the economy is in ruins, access to work is blocked, and families have difficulty putting food on the table. In Israel, too many are in mourning, living in anxiety and fear. There must be another way!
Our catastrophe did not begin on October 7, 2023. The cycles of violence have been unending, beginning in 1917, peaking in 1948 and 1967, and continuing ever since until today. And today, has the Zionist dream of a safe home for Jews in a Jewish state called Israel brought security for Jews? And the Palestinians? They are caught up in the reality of death, exile, and abandonment for too long, waiting while persistently demanding the right to remain in their land, in their towns and villages.
Shockingly, the international community looks on almost impassively. Calls for a ceasefire and an end to the devastation are repeated, with no meaningful attempt to reign in those wreaking havoc. Weapons of mass destruction and the means to commit crimes against humanity flow into the region.
As this all continues, the questions resound: When will this end? For how long can we survive like this? What is the future of our children? Should we emigrate?
As Christians, we are faced with other dilemmas, too: Is this a war in which we are simply passive bystanders? Where do we stand in this conflict, presented too often as a struggle between Jews and Muslims, between Israel, on the one hand, and Hamas and Hezbollah, supported by Iran, on the other? Is this a religious war? Should we isolate ourselves in the precarious safety of our Christian communities, cutting ourselves off from what is going on around us? Are we simply watching and praying on the sidelines, hoping this war will eventually pass?
The answer is a resounding no. This is not a religious war. And we must actively take sides, the side of justice and peace, freedom and equality. We must stand alongside all those—Muslims, Jews, and Christians—who seek to put an end to death and destruction.
We do so because of our faith in a living God and in our conviction that we must build a future together. Though our Christian community is small, Jesus reminds us that our presence is powerful. Confident in his resurrection, we have the vocation to be like yeast in the dough of society. With our prayers, solidarity, service, and living hope, we must encourage all of those around us, of all faiths and those with no faith, to find the strength to lift ourselves up from our collective exhaustion and find a path forward.
But none of us can do this alone. We look to our Christian religious leaders, our bishops, and our priests for words of guidance. We need our shepherds to help us discern the strength that we have when we are together. Alone, each one of us is isolated and reduced to silence. Only together can we find the resources to face the challenges.
In our exhaustion and despair, let us remember the paralytic man (Mark 2: 1-12) who could not get up. It was only when his friends carried him, when they used their imagination to create a hole in the roof and lower him down on his mat, that he was able to reach Jesus, who said to him: “Get up and walk.”
So it is with us. We must carry one another if we are to go forward. We must use our imaginations, rooted in Christ, to find openings where there appear to be none. When we have reached the limits of our hope, together we carry one another, as we turn to God and ask for help.
We need this help not to despair, not to fall into the trap of hatred. Our faith in the Resurrection teaches us that all human beings are to be loved, equal, created in the image of God, children of God, and brothers and sisters of one another. Our belief in the dignity of every human person is manifest in our service to the wider community. Our schools, hospitals, and social services are places where we indiscriminately care for all in need.
It is also our faith that motivates us to speak the truth and oppose injustice. We are believers in a peace that Jesus has given us, and that cannot be taken away. “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). We must not be afraid to speak out against any form of violence, killing, and dehumanization. Our faith makes us spokespeople of a vision for a land without walls and without discrimination, a land of equality and freedom for all, and a future in which we live together.
We will only know peace when the tragedy of the Palestinian people is brought to an end. Only then will Israelis enjoy security. We need a definitive peace agreement between these two partners, not temporary ceasefires or interim solutions. Israel’s massive military force can destroy and bring death; it can wipe out political and military leaders and anyone who dares to stand up and oppose occupation and discrimination. However, it cannot bring the security that Israelis need. The international community must help us by recognizing that the root cause of this war is the negation of the right of the Palestinian people to live in their land, free and equal.
A peaceful future depends on a togetherness that extends beyond our own community. We are one people, Christians and Muslims. Together, we must seek the way beyond the cycles of violence. Together with them, we must engage with those Jewish Israelis who are also tired of the rhetoric, the lies, and the ideologies of death and destruction.
Let us set forth, carrying one another. Let us keep hope alive, knowing that peace is possible. It will be difficult, but we remember that we once lived together in this land as Muslims, Jews, and Christians. There will be many moments when the way appears blocked. But together, we will carve out a path forward, rooted in God’s hope, and “hope does not disappoint us.” (Romans 5:5). Our hope is in God, in ourselves, and in every human being upon whom God bestows some of His goodness.
Michel Sabbah, Patriarch Emeritus
Michel Sabbah was the Archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987 to 2008, the first non-Italian to hold this position in more than five centuries. From 1999-2007, Sabbah was the International President of Pax Christi, a Catholic organisation promoting peace. Sabbah has also spoken in support of Palestinian rights, the two-state solution and the Palestinian refugees’ right of return. Sabbah is currently the Grand Prior of the chivalric Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, one of the knightly orders founded in 1099.
*Written on October 7, 2024 and used with permission for this first Advent devotional as a reminder of what had transpired over the first year after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on the south of Israel resulting in the deaths of roughly 1,200 people, the capture of more than 240 hostages, and a subsequent bombing campaign and war on Gaza with a devastating toll of more than 43,000 people killed as of early November 2024.
Response by Jessica Sun
As we reflect on the human need for reconciliation, radical kinship, and togetherness, may our dreams fuel our actions as the day’s work at its end leads us back into the repose of prayer.
May we marinate in the love of our Good God, the Eternal Artist, who delights in us, and who cries in pain at every child of Hers/His who is bombed, who goes hungry, who is maimed, especially in the historic land of Palestine.
For the widows and orphans of our time in the Holy Land, what can you commit to doing for your brethren in this holy season of the coming of our Savior?
How will you be Christ to them, and how will you let them be Christ to you?
Write down one action you can commit to taking every week for our oppressed brothers, sisters, and siblings.
For God leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way (Psalm 25:9).
Now, we invite you to pray the words of the prayer below. Allow space in the prayer for slowness, stillness, and noticing.
River of Grace
prayer written by Sister Donna Butler, Sister of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods
Let us gather up the tears of all times,
all nations, all peoples,
all children
to form a river of grace
to moisten, saturate, drench
the hardness of hearts of stone
turning them into hearts of flesh,
into the heart of the God of Providence.
Let us gather up the tears of all times
to honor the grief of all generations
to honor the grief of the planet
over what we have done to God’s creation.
May all these tears become living water
that nourishes the deep down roots of Love
that births new life into the cosmos.
May this living water pour down
the justice, mercy, and love
of the Heart of God.
Amen.
Jessica Sun is a candidate for vowed membership in the St. Joseph Sisters of Peace. She has served as Secretary and member of the Executive Council of Pax Christi Metro DC Baltimore and as a member of the Pax Christi Young Adult Caucus.
One Response
Dear Patriarch Sabbah and friends,
How grateful I am to read your outpouring of love for all in Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon and beyond.
I am so overwhelmed with the helplessness of so many thousands and millions.
Your words bring hope and grace for all – for ALL, nor for some.
Yes, our governments in Europe and the world have not done anything to bring about peace and cause the violence to be opposed with strong and specific action.
Who will lead us to a better international response?
Blessings,
Revd. Basil Scott