by John Daniel Gore
Text: Isaiah 11:6-16
“Bethlehem must be such a mystical
place to spend Christmas,” a family friend commented in a recent
e-mail. The tourists think so. A shop-keeper once complained to me
that droves of people spewed from buses, in and out of the Nativity
Church, and back onto the buses without visiting Bethlehem’s Old
City area. All ‘Holy’ sites are like that. Pilgrims carry their
Easter vision with them from the hotel to the Holy Sepulcher and mill
for an hour in the vortex of waiting bodies to kiss a rock. At the
Garden Tomb this November, where Jesus was never buried nor rose,
pilgrims sang hymns of praise that grated my nerves: I was burned out
this November. The Gaza conflict followed...
I see Israeli occupation daily, working
by the Annexation/Apartheid Wall. At my office we like to say that
the occupation would prevent Mary and Joseph from reaching Bethlehem
but pregnant Mary would have stayed in Nazareth if not for Roman
occupation (—matrices of control). When the wind howls past my
window, I think the Holy family wished that the census was taken in
balmy Jericho. Probably, relatives tucked them into a lower cavern,
where the animals were kept, and Mary had a normal, wretched
delivery. Giving birth sucks. I am not saying that shepherds did not
make an uncanny visit nor that magi did not follow a brilliant
supernova, predicting Christ’s ascension to ministry. All of that
happened but so did the ugly details missing from popular
imagination...
I adored the Christmas of my childhood,
overflowing with the warmth of family and the promise of good things,
with plenty of merry winter fun. That Christmas feeling slowly
drained away as my parents divorced, my grandparents died, and I left
places behind. Jesus was harder to find in the plastic faces of
swaddled baby-dolls. I wanted mystical Bethlehem to revive my
earliest memories of anticipation and awe. Bethlehem’s aura is
different and the yuletide center of gravity is shifted Northward.
Without any occupation, this place might be ‘Scandinavian
wonderland meets Southern California climate’ but Palestine was
unlucky, falling to the Ottoman and British Empires and now to
Israel— so deftly named to commandeer Old Testament prophesies for
a Manifest Destiny agenda. The Christmas I knew is shot and hung to
dry...
I have kept searching, though. Isaiah
is a thicket of predictions, prophesy, and blatant wishes where we
can find both visions of the Messiah: the counter-conqueror versus
the counter-cultural. Reading Isaiah out-loud, I came to a passage in
chapter 11 that juxtaposes images of unprecedented peace with a
vision of regional dominance. “Aw [expletive],” I grumbled, “this
sounds SO stinking zionist.” I stopped to pray for a moment. “Could
it be,” I mused, “that Isaiah had a broader vision than the
translators or, further still, could it be that God had a greater
vision than Isaiah could comprehend as he penned?” What if the
returning exiles were refugees in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and
Lebanon—from enclaves around the world— exercising their right to
return with equal rights? There could be space, in this text—on the
land, for everyone to overcome the rash of reactive ethnocentrism
that rooted itself here over seventy years ago. I can reclaim
Christmas from the neo-colonialists— Independence Day, too...
Christmas in Bethlehem feels like the
4th of July. Each Christmas procession (there are parades
for each rite) conjures a wave of pomp that surges along The Star
Street. Camel riders, people dressed as cartoon characters, long
lines of silent monks, and band after band of bagpipe-toting scout
troupes pour in from across the West Bank. I love marching
bagpipes. A gargantuan, fake pine with flashing lights is erected in
the middle of the square, next to the massive stage. Living a block
from the square, I am treated to two weeks of rah-rah and concerts
but nothing compares to the tree-lighting. A mass of Christians,
streaked with curious Muslims, congeals around the tree to listen to
speeches by big-wigs: the mayor, the prime minister, special guests.
I cannot resist the electricity. At last, a bloom of fireworks forces
the recon drones to higher altitudes. The band bursts into song and
everyone croons: “Ballaaaadi! Ballaaaadi!” My country! My
country! Tears trickle from my chin: my patriotism has returned from
exile. In Bethlehem, at Christmas, I have a nation again as a
Christian!
In successive years, Advent comes
wrapped in a Palestinian statehood bid. The land groans for
liberation. Imagine how early Christians must have felt when Jesus
was hung to dry, rolled in spices and buried. The Star the magi
followed must have seemed like a lie, all anticipation wasted. Then
the good news emerged that he was risen, that they could hoist the
cross at last. They remained among a sea of doubters and hostiles.
Similarly, the United Nations voted overwhelmingly, 139 to 9, to
grant Palestine nonmember State status. Yet those 9 have the power to
close an iron noose. Herod (I mean the Knesset) is restless: there
could be military crackdowns, new restrictions. False prophets across
the West speculate with outdated information and armchair heuristics.
Regardless, most of the world awoke as protests for Gaza dotted the
globe last month: the smell of Justice, like the Magi, wafts across
the desert!
The newborn Jesus was our statehood
bid, Christians, but not the state that was envisioned. I believe
that having a Messiah was a terrible, human idea that God purloined
for the good of all humanity. God pirated the Messianic prophesies
using the census, angels, and even the stars to put the boy from
Nazareth in the right place at the right time. What a huge save!
Jesus did come to balmy Jericho and, on the Mount of Temptation,
Satan painted him a picture of supremacy. Jesus had an immaculate
conception: to forego domination for Salvation. The budding
anticipation flowered that day and the Advent of Salvation, his
ministry and passage into the Earth as The seed of Love, and
everything that followed was clinched. Hallelujah!
Like the first Christmas, little has
changed ‘on the ground’. I keep returning to the magi, those
people who came from afar because they knew (inexplicably?) that
Victory was imminent. The solidarity workers are all magi and the
local NGO-workers are our shepherds. We seem like crazy optimists.
The rest of the world thinks we celebrate prematurely. Bethlehem
shows us the first, shining face of Christmas. It is a brazen
demonstration of Faith in things to come: an end to oppression, the
beginning of a people. When our lives are torn apart and we feel
rootless, Christmas is a time to conceive what God will do to restore
Unity with Dignity. As for the warm Christmas I knew as a child, I
understand now that this is the glow of Victory remembered. Someday,
I will see it again.
رجاء,
مبادرة,
و سلام إليكم.
[Hope, Initiative, and Peace to you all]
***
John Daniel Gore is a young adult missionary through the United
Methodist Church serving at the Wi'am Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center. He was born and educated in Michigan before departing for
Bethlehem, Palestine, to begin what he hopes is a career in peace and
conflict. He describes himself as a writer, a hack musician, and a lover
of insects, lakes, and star-lit nights. He blogs at Reverse Exiled.
No comments:
Post a Comment