This year as the holy days of three great religions overlap, Rochester Witness for Palestine is offering reflections from Jewish, Muslim and Christian perspectives. Here is a Christian perspective.
I remember this week how Jesus was crucified by the Roman Occupation of Palestine with the approval of religious authorities. He was crucified because his life and teaching were in stark contrast to the powers that kept the poor under their thumb.
The book of Hebrews says of Jesus, “Who, for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. . .”
Jesus did not rely on brute power to do his work. He did not lead armies or bear arms. He endured all the forces upon which nations and many professed Christians rely. He could, as the Gospels say, have called down legions of angels to help him. He refused. Instead he offered a more excellent way.
Under Roman occupation, Jesus taught his followers how to be faithful in an occupied land. Palestinian Christians today draw on the power of love to creatively and nonviolently resist their occupation by the Zionist apartheid state of Israel.
For 75 years the Palestinian people have faced a catastrophe, the loss of their lands, the destruction of their homes, the erosion of their communities. Displacement, imprisonment, control of their movement haunt them daily. This is the Nakba, the Catastrophe. But, the world is awakening to the terror of it now. We are responding in a multitude of ways including the Boycott. Divestment and Sanctions movement. The minds of the nations are changing.
Christians believe that the power of love ultimately prevails over the love of power. The power of love raised Jesus from the dead. In his book The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God, Lee Griffith wrote, “It is the resurrection which is the terror of God to all who believe that death should have the final word.”
As A.J. Muste said: “. . .whenever love that will suffer unto death is manifested, whenever a true Crucifixion takes place, unconquerable power is released into the stream of history. The intuition that God has been let loose on earth when such devotion is manifested is absolutely sound.”
The life, death and resurrection of Jesus released love into the world. Only love can break the cycle of domination and oppression. Only love can create the New Jerusalem that John in the book of Revelation saw coming down from heaven. Only a city for all can sustain a world for all.
The earliest Christians called themselves People of the Way, Sabeel as our Palestinian friends call it. This is the way we seek to follow, always imperfectly. There is a place for you in this work.
Rev. Dr. Richard Myers, Rochester Witness for Palestine