December 2003

Reflections in the season of Advent

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

You and I find ourselves again in the wonderful Season of Advent, the season when we reflect, when we wait, when we long for the Messiah, for Emmanuel, for the Prince of Peace. Across the land, we light candles of hope, peace, joy, and love as our anticipation for the Light of the World grows.

O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.

Never before in my life have I needed this period of reflection, this season of anticipation more. For me, 2003 has been a journey of exploring how separate from God we humans can become and how hatred and racism lead us to the very worst of human behavior. My personal journey is inextricably linked to my mission responsibilities on behalf of the Worldwide Ministries Division.

In May, I was privileged to expand my portfolio to Poland, a “bridge between East and West,” and a natural complement to my responsibilities to church partners in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. While in Warsaw as a guest of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Poland, I took a day to wander the streets and visit the monuments of the Warsaw Ghetto, infamous locale of the Holocaust. I had prepared for weeks: viewing the Academy award winning movie, “The Pianist;” reading Wladyslaw Spilman’s autobiographic account of survival in The Pianist and Leon Uris’s epic Mila 18, and studying dozens of documents about the Warsaw Ghetto.

Nothing prepared me for the experiences of the day. I walked the streets in which over 400,000 Jews were “resettled” inside a brick wall 11 miles long encircling residences, businesses, and factories. With limited food and inhumane conditions, 100,000 people perished in 1941 alone.

Then in July 1942, “The Great Action” began—the mass deportation of Jews from Warsaw to the nearby extermination camp of Treblinka, one of over 300 Nazi concentration and death camps across Europe. In a summer of horror, as many as 265,000 men, women, and children were herded into boxcars and transported from the ghetto to their deaths in gas chambers.

Standing amidst the marble memorial of the Umschlagplatz, the assembly point where humans were packed onto the trains for the short ride to Treblinka, I forced myself not to run, but stand in silent prayer and tribute to those who neared the end of their lives in this spot.

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of Hell thy people save, and give them victory over the grave.

Days later in Moscow I passed the Dubrovka Theater, venue of the musical “Nord Ost” and site of the Chechen hostage taking in October 2002. Separatist Chechen fighters captured 800 people and held them for three days until the theater was stormed by Russian security forces. In the hostage “rescue,” all 41 hostage takers were killed and 129 hostages died, poisoned by the gas used to incapacitate everyone in the theater.

When I discuss the war in Chechnya with Russians or Americans, I urge them to read Leo Tolstoy’s short novel, “Hadji Murat,” a tale of expansion of the Tsarist empire into the Caucasus in the 1850s. Across 150 years, only technology and the weapons of killing have changed. The clash of cultures, the lack of understanding, and the desire to maintain empire have stayed the same. Violence in Chechnya will continue until both sides end the demonization of the other and recognize that they are all the children of God and called to live together in community.

O come, Thou day-spring, come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadows put to flight.

In a calm and business-like manner, the group recounted episodes of the physical attacks on MPC members over the past month in the subway or on the street; of verbal harassment at work or at school; and, of the futile efforts to urge Moscow’s police to investigate the acts of violence by skinheads or other racists against the capital’s people of color. The meeting then turned to the next steps in elevating the concerns to senior Russian officials, the diplomatic community, and the international news media. Extraordinary work has been done by this Task Force in the last few years documenting attacks and bringing pressure on Russian officials to deal with the racism seemingly endemic to Russian society.

Three days later and 1,200 kilometers east of Moscow, I walked along a street following Sunday worship and wonderful Christian fellowship at Hope Church in Perm, Russia. Perhaps it was the boldness, the “in your face” quality of the scrawled message that stopped me in my tracks. “Death to Blacks” read the spray-painted message on the red brick wall. It was signed with a swastika. Racism is not confined to a metropolitan area like Moscow.

O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery.

Advent waiting magnifies the gift of the coming of Christ on Christmas Day. A time of reflection on the aching for salvation makes more wondrous the joy of the birth of the baby. In these days ahead, we in this land join our Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran, and Reformed brothers and sisters in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland in anticipation of the coming Emmanuel, God with Us. Our trust is in the Lord, and in that trust we are moved beyond the separation, the hatred, the racism that surrounds us.

O come, Desire of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease, and be Thyself our King of Peace.

May the Peace of Christ be with you,

Gary

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 340