08232
March 26, 2008

Leave violence behind, says Jerusalem bishop at Easter

by Judith Sudilovsky
Ecumenical News International

JERUSALEM — Christians must live with hope because it is a part of who they are and what they believe, said Jerusalem Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan in his Easter message.

“We are to promote life, security and justice for all peoples,” said Younan, who leads the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. “We are to tell our leaders that the old ways of violence, revenge and retaliation are bringing nothing but more of the same.”

Younan described the empty tomb left by Jesus at Easter as leading to the only true hope.

“The empty tomb revives us, creates with us the power of hope and tells us, ‘As I live, so also will you live,’” said Bishop Younan. “It is our role as a Christian Church living in the land of the resurrection to proclaim this call beyond fear and death into new life.”

He said all Palestinian Christians needed to be an integral part of a society that is fearful and suffering, to witness to hope, even when no hope can be seen. They must be, he said “an oasis of hope in a broken and battered land.”

The Lutheran bishop described fear as the common thread that joins Israelis and Palestinians together, each concerned about violence and injustice done to them. “The only way forward is to create a reality in which both peoples can celebrate freedom, justice, security and development equally,” he said.

Younan said “visionary leaders” were needed, who can come into the real world and make some concrete changes so that their peoples will believe that this is possible.

Preaching from atop the Mount of Olives on Easter Sunday, March 23, Mark Holman, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving in Jerusalem, noted the diminishing Christian population in the Holy Land. At the same time, an Israeli-built wall cuts through the West Bank separates families from each other and from their land, he said.

“This evil construction, sometimes towering 25 feet in the air, stands to separate family from family, worker from job, patient from hospital, farmer from field, and parishioner from church and mosque,” he noted.

Israel says it needs the barrier in order to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks emanating from the West Bank and Gaza.