April 2001

Dear Friends and Relations,

It is Holy Week here in Jerusalem. This year, both the Orthodox as well as the Protestant and Catholic Christian communities of the Holy Land will celebrate Palm Sunday and Easter together, as their church calendars coincide with one another. It is also the beginning of the Passover (Pessah) holiday for Israeli Jews. On Sunday, I walked in the annual Palm Sunday Procession, beginning from Bethpage down the Mt. of Olives, as I have done every year since I have lived here. But this year’s procession was much more somber than those in years past, as it lacked the brightly colored uniforms and stirring music of the local Palestinian scouts from the West Bank towns of Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Beit Sahour, Jericho and Ramallah. The Israeli closure imposed on the Palestinian Autonomous areas, coupled with the first day of Passover, made it impossible for most Palestinian Christians to attend. Missing from the procession were Palestinian Christian children and teenagers, singing in Arabic "Be joyful, Jerusalem!" "Glorify your God!" "Hosanna in the highest!" Jerusalem is anything but joyful these days.

If Christ wept over this Holy City on that first Palm Sunday because, "…If this day you only knew what makes for peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes" (Luke 19:42), surely he is weeping grievous tears over this city today.

The week that has just passed beheld some of the most violent acts of humankind’s inhumanity to one another in this land we call "holy." The Bethlehem region was shelled heavily by Israeli tanks on Monday afternoon, causing extensive damage to the Paradise Hotel. The blasts from Israeli tanks firing their shells was so loud that it could be heard from my office window here in Jerusalem, some five miles away. Heeding the advice of friends who had called to warn me not to come home, I spent the night in Jerusalem instead. It was the first time in five-and-a-half years that, due to the situation on the ground, I was unable to get home.

At the same time, the Israeli Housing Ministry announced plans to expand Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, further inflaming an already volatile situation. Five thousand additional homes for Jewish-only residents are planned for this year; most will be located in the southern portion of the West Bank, and very near Palestinian populated areas.

One has to reasonably question why, at a time when Israeli settlers and Palestinian civilians are clashing in violent confrontations on an almost daily basis, would the Israeli government instigate such a provocative move, which will no doubt prompt an inflammatory response from the Palestinian side. Such actions only corroborate Palestinian suspicions regarding the intentions of the current Israeli government, i.e. that Israel has no intentions of withdrawing from the territories, but rather, is entrenching itself and thus broadening the occupation. Emotions of both anger and fear increase with each passing day.

In his book, I am a Palestinian Christian, Reverend Dr. Miri Raheb, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem writes: "God forbids us to shed our enemy’s blood. But God also summons us to resist our enemy, if that enemy attempts to shed the blood of our neighbor. We do not want to kill our enemy, but we will not let him kill our brother or sister either. Loving one’s enemy without resisting him would be a cheap, abstract, and treasonable attitude. But to resist without loving one’s enemy can be inhuman, brutal and violent. The one without the other would violate divine human rights. But if we can endure the tension, both love and resistance offer the only way out for us Christians."

It is Holy Week here in Jerusalem, and to be sure, Jerusalem needs a week that is holy. The gospel story of life conquering death, of good defeating evil needs to be repeated and affirmed again in this hallowed land. In spite of the current hardships, unspeakable pain and despair and unfathomable human suffering, Palestinian Christians will greet one another this Easter season with the same familiar phrase: "al Mesi’h Com!" ("Christ is risen!"). And the reply by the faithful will be the triumphant reaffirmation, "Haken com!" ("Risen, indeed!").

Happy Easter!

Doug Dicks

The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 143