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| Image by Miquel González Page |
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A GREETING
Relieve the troubles of my heart,
and bring me out of my distress.
(Psalm 25:17)
A READING
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one... whose origin is from of old,
from ancient days.
And he shall stand and feed his flock
in the strength of the Lord,
in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.
And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth;
and he shall be the one of peace.
(Micah 1:2-5)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
Seek peace, and pursue it.
(Psalm 34:14b)
A PRAYER
Gracious and holy God, lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead us from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our hearts, our world, our universe; through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
- Prayer for Peace found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship
VERSE FOR THE DAY
What does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:4)
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| "Christ in the Rubble," by Kelly Latimore. The artist was inspired by the photograph below. |
On Saturdays, we pause from our theme to pray for the wider world around us.
Earlier this month, authorities in Bethlehem decided not to proceed with regular Christmas celebrations, in solidarity with those affected by the war in Gaza. A region that normally sees thousands of tourists at this time of year, will be largely silent.
The image at bottom comes from the creche created by The Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. The scene depicts the baby Jesus lying in a mound of debris made by bombings. The creche scene was created as an expression of the lived experience of Palestinians in the West Bank and in Gaza. Bethlehem is in the West Bank, and therefore it is subject to tremendous distress in these days. All checkpoints allowing people in and out have been closed. Families are torn apart by grief and loss, both in the West Bank and in Gaza. There will indeed be silence in Bethlehem, but not the silence of mystery and awe; instead it is the silence of dread and fear. In Israel, families are also torn apart, as lost loved ones are grieved from the October 7th attacks, and others are held hostage far from home.
How do these events impact us, half a world away? Should we also alter our celebrations in honour of those who long for peace?
Jesus was a Jewish child born in Bethlehem, in a region called Judea because the occupying Romans no longer wanted it to have the Jewish name of Judah. Occupied Judea was run by Herod, a middleman between Rome and the Jewish community, and mostly a terror to the Jewish people. Jesus was forced as an infant to become a migrant to Egypt and then back to Nazareth; he was raised by a community of Jewish people in the Galilee, a region despised in its time for being rebellious. As a man, he was baptized in what is now Jordan, and crucified in Jerusalem, which is populated in our own time by Jewish, Muslim and Christian people. He was a person of many home regions and no one home.
To be Christian is to hold hope for a transformed world. When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, longing for healing and restoration wherever there is brokenness. Sometimes we pray for others when they are unable to pray for themselves or when prayer is hard. We become the mediators of prayer. We hold the sighs and the words and we hold the hope that others are finding difficult to find. Despite all of the pain and desperate suffering and loss in both Palestine and Israel, despite that we could easily feel only a sense of doom, we are called to hope. We pray into this closed-down Bethlehem, O come O come Emmanuel. We beg Jesus to come and to help us transform hatred into love.
How can we hold the hope, and honour the pain, of this particular Christmas, on behalf of all peoples who live in war-torn regions? In what ways can we welcome Jesus into a world that will bring an everlasting peace?
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| Image posted by The Rev. Munther Isaac on X (formerly Twitter). |
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LC† Come Holy Darkness is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help to support extended offerings throughout the year.
Thank you and peace be with you!