Christian Presence, the Love of God, and Losing the Holy Land
Is there anything true and real irrupting from the hellish war in Gaza that shapes how Christians see Jesus at work in the world and hear Christ's invitation to join in the redemption of all things?
“What is truth?”
So the foreign Imperial governor of the Promised Land inquired of the homeless prophet of Nazareth, being accused of sedition against the occupying forces and blasphemy by his own religious leaders.
For any violent political or religious organization, Jesus the Son of God is an unsettling power and presence eventually: the truth will set you free, but first It will judge you - especially since It is personal, It has a name - God is Love and Jesus is Truth.
As a whole, each of the Abrahamic religions have not lived up to their calling to be instruments of peace, truth and love in the name of God; what is transpiring in the Holy Land right now is a tragic example.
For all that the Abrahamic faith traditions have in common, which is significant, where they differ is significant as well: how Christ Jesus the Lord relates to them is crucial and worth paying attention to.
“What is truth?”
If we are going to be responsible and honest, yet caring and respectful about the different ways that different religions relate to Jesus Christ, let’s first clear the air: Christians and their unique perspectives DO NOT get to be smug or arrogant.
If anything, we are willing to claim the perpetual humiliating log in our own eye, and like Paul confess candidly that we are the worst of sinners AS WELL AS acknowledge our experiences of being profoundly loved by God and live in gratitude for Jesus setting us free from our “bad hearts and broken ways” that we might be brought “together on the path of peace.”
What salvation means to the three Abrahamic faiths is not identical, the significance of land is not the same, nor do they see how to participate in the love of God similarly: the personal reality of Jesus in light of Moses and Mohammed is a dynamic difference.
But: too often Christians focus so much on beliefs and so little on behavior that for all their “correct” doctrine they end up justifying the use of violence and propping up unjust authorities. So, in pointing out similarities and differences on how the person of Jesus relates to the three Abrahamic traditions, is it really about superiority or “better” religions?
However, if there are people in the world who are going to respond to a call to follow in the way, truth and life of the Lord Christ Jesus the Son of God, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, there will be clarifying moments of crisis and grief when we will get asked, “What is truth?” and what will we say?
For Christians who live in the Holy Land with their Jewish and Muslim neighbors, every day is a clarifying moment of crisis and grief these past 75 years. Where have the global Christians been, what kind of solidarity has there been for our brothers and sisters in Christ as they seek to be peacemakers in their neighborhoods?
“What is truth?”
Sadly, the history of Western Christianity includes that of violent anti-Semitism, it was real during the Dark Ages, it was real during the Holocaust, and it’s still real today. And to be honest, the relationship between Christianity and Islam has included vast amounts of violence, warfare, crusades, jihads, empire-clashing, and recently threats of mutually assured destruction.
Do Christians anywhere in the world have anything real or helpful to say or do regarding the violence between Judaism and Islam in the Holy Land?
Considering the complicity of Christians in the use of violence for the kingdom of God, do we have any moral credibility left?
What does the bombing of Gaza mean for the Christian witness in the world?
It feels like it’s descended into an age where everyone does what is right in their own eyes and the wicked prosper through their brute strength, cleverness, and violence…
Is it an irruption of the brutal reality of warfare that’s never been digitally recorded and viewed like this before?
Take the shock and horror of October 7 and every day since and multiply it by all the women and children and men who have ever been innocently killed in any conflict in the past four thousand years and then ask yourself: what is wrong with humanity? That we would do this to ourselves? That we would become numb to this? That we would look away? That we would justify it?
It’s all way over my head…
What can individuals do? What can organizations do? What can churches do? What can communities do?
What will bring us all together on the path of peace in this world as it really is?
Empires rise and fall, governments come and go, nations emerge and then erode, tribes are born and die, communities are planted and then wither, organizations are created and then entropy, religions bind people together and then are broken, cultures are founded in violence and are undone by it: this is the natural way of the world.
Why did God create a world like this?
Why not a world where it is always peace all the time, no violence, only love always?
Why create a world where there is so much suffering and cruelty, so much torture and crime, so much wickedness and injustice?
Why not create a world where everyone does what is right all the time?
If this is “heaven” or the future “new Jerusalem” why wait? Why not just do it from the beginning as the Creator of Everything?
For me the terrible conflagration consuming Gaza is fuel for despair in my spirit regarding the role of religion as an instrument of peace, of democracy as a civilized form of humane governance, of global agencies to prevent war.
We are doomed…so it seems…
The failure of the global Christian church to be in solidarity with Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land is catching up with us, and the consequences of neglect will play themselves out: you reap what you sow.
But: as they say - the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now.
This is in part why I read the wisdom of Christian leaders from generations and centuries and millennia prior: if nothing about humanity or civilization has fundamentally changed in all these years, then we can learn from them about how to participate in the kingdom of God with a more grounded perspective regarding our current confusing realities.
If the purpose of the kingdom of God is to create a utopia on earth then each generation is a failure. Once every hundred years? Still a failure. Once a millennia? Still a failure.
What is the purpose of the kingdom of God on earth then? And how does it relate to our life as individuals and families in communities and tribes, governing citizens in states and nations and empires?
Stripping away the propaganda of how nations and empires were created, how much of it is really glorious and evoking of patriotism? How much of it is the striving of kings and merchants driven by pride and rivalrous envy, unchecked greed and gluttony, fueled by lust for revenge and uncaring souls towards the innocent? This is the story of the “great” empires of our civilizations, of our robber barons and global industrialists.
Take away the “technological advancements” of our age and the headlines are no different than any century or continent in the past four thousand years.
People aren’t really better or smarter than their ancestors, we’re not more morally advanced or ethically superior. For every invention, there is a motivation for how it will “improve” our daily life, and then the violent oppressive dark side of it eventually emerges.
So what is God doing in this broken world full of bad hearts, which he created and bears responsibility for its existence? What will he do for it? What will he do because of it? Is the Creator indifferent? When children and infants are cruelly tortured, where is God? Why not at least prevent humans from doing that?
Why create a world where humans are made in the image of God, granted the authority and power to steward the creation and help it flourish, but also make it possible for those same humans to rebel and infect it with their violent vices?
What kind of capacity and responsibility has God given his Creation to do what he called and equipped them to do? Is all of the torturing of the innocent on humans? Is it up to us to stop it? If we can’t stop ourselves from doing it, what do we do then? Which is the case?
If we are not just individuals but also tied together in our humanity, all humans of all time in all places every throughout all of creation are bound together by our DNA and imago dei, we are all under judgment, not just individually, but as one.
We are trying to mark out our space to show our innocence, our non-complicity, how our hands are clean, how the wrongs of the world are not our fault.
Or redefine it: what one calls wrong we call right, since it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Might makes right. Survival of the fittest. You do you. It is what it is. To each their own. First do no harm. Just do it. Be you. Be fair. Be tolerant.
But who wins and who loses in these ethical frames? And who gets to decide this? Why? Natural rights? Tradition? Authority? Community? Circumstances? Intelligence? Violence? Eloquence? Wealth? Power? Custom? Manipulation? Threats? Crime? Vice? Fear? Apathy?
“What is truth?”
Like Pilate, if there was any caring honesty in his question, any respect, any sense of responsibility with his task, it’s a provocative question with significant implications. It’s the difference between standing on sinking sand or on solid rock.
If you’re going to commit to following Christ, if you’re going to say “yes” to the call to serve Jesus, then what is true and real gets experienced in proximity to the words and works of the Lord, in hearing and doing the commands and instructions of Christ, of getting wisdom and understanding from the revelation of God in the world.
Even Saint Paul had to resort to faith and trust, to mystery and awe - to stand on truth still requires love over certainty, hope over assurance.
This was the struggle of Abraham, even after holding a real son in his arms; of Moses even after seeing his people on the other side of the Red Sea; of David even after he became king; of Mary holding a real son in her harms, of Peter seeing Jesus on the other side of the door, of John even after being exiled by a king.
Each Christian gets to receive a kind of call from Christ to participate in the kingdom of God where they live. In your generation, in your community, in your country, in your culture. It depends on the kind of person you are, who you are and where you came from, what you bring with you, and what you are capable of. God takes it all and weaves it together for his purposes.
The Hebrew Scriptures are an accounting of how God made the world and became known in it amongst humanity. It’s an interesting account, that is for sure. It is the foundation for understanding the four Gospels, which are an account of Jesus of Nazareth, what he said and did, in particular as the revealed son of God and Abraham. The Epistles are accounts of God in Jesus to various communities of Christians around the Mediterranean region: Rome and Greece, Asia Minor and Palestine, as well as those Hebrews and Gentiles who became Christians and were scattered across the known world.
And so now almost twenty centuries later there are still Christians in the world, of almost every tribe and tongue, every continent and country.
Born in the midst of the Roman Empire, Christianity has had to navigate the complexities of being born as a Hebrew sect, spread amongst Gentiles, led by an itinerant homeless Hebrew king of divine origins who was crucified, resurrected, and ascended into the heavens, who then appointed his apostles and disciples to go and make more disciples teaching them everything they were taught, go to every nation, and remember: I am with you always.
So every generation has the opportunity to do this in their own way with Christ Jesus in their midst.
Whether it’s in Imperial settings or the backwoods villages, whether it’s in cities or fields, halls of power or highways of the poor: there will be “little Christ’s” making disciples.
And then there will be apostles writing letters and books to those communities reminding them of the truth, correcting what they are getting wrong, encouraging them in what they are getting right, and exhorting them to not give up but to keep trusting God in Jesus through the Holy Spirit of peace and kindness. And some of these will be wealthy powerful Christians, some will be slaves of no account, women and men, people of every background made one in God through Christ by the Spirit.
There is no utopia on Earth.
It is a real natural world with storms and winds, earthquakes and floods, droughts and fires. It is a dangerous place for humans; first from the geography and weather, then from the animals and accidents, and then from each other.
We may understand more about the natural world scientifically, and figured out how to make the world safer from natural dangers, and from ourselves. But it’s never 100%, and entropy is always at work in the natural world.
What does it mean for Christians to be realists, to be committed to the truth, to expend energy to see the world for what it really is, to see it as it really is, to live in it as it really is?
What would change about how we live these days?
We all live within cultures and societies; this results in a natural “unthinking” about our thinking and deep assumptions about our sense of our reality and day-to-day lives of meaning-making.
How much of truth and reality can we actually grasp? And if only a small group of people grasp glimpses of it, what would we do with it, especially if it disrupts the powers and norms?
And so we are back to Jesus standing in front of Pilate:
“What is truth?”
“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.
[Gospel according to John, 18.37-38 NIV]
Sometimes it feels like too many Christians approach the world they live in with a blank slate, or feel like they need to be in control, or at least be deferred to, or live with the assumption that everyone else sees the world similarly to them.
So there is no earnest digging for the truth, they just want power, for things to go their way, for a path towards continued safety and security, increased prosperity and success.
If there were idols today, if we were to bring back the Greek or Roman gods if there was the worship of “representations of reality” to whom we sacrificed our children, our money, and our enemies, it’d be Safety and Security, Prosperity, Success, Power, Leisure, Way of Life, Convenience, Knowledge, Pleasure, Freedom… basically nothing has changed.
Empires are empires, kings are kings, tyrants are tyrants, brigands are brigands, and tribes and communities need to be governed, justice and peace need to be administered for the welfare and commonwealth of those in proximity to each other.
It would seem that the Bible has little to say about which system of governing is of God, but a lot to say about how to be a people anywhere in the world governed by God. We are always dual citizens: fully in our communities and world, but even more so full of God and participating in the kingdom of God in that place.
Probably almost always as a minority, like salt cast forth upon the earth.
So it also takes many different kinds of Christians who are part of every form of government and culture, followers of Christ from every country and language group, who see the world differently, who see each other differently, who view God differently.
To say “this is what all Christians should do” is a difficult thing. It can be a challenge to judge other Christians in light of the great diversity among us.
Apparently what unites us in truth is our labor of love to listen to Jesus. Being present to Christ in our midst, letting the presence of Christ through his words and works in the world be in our mind and spirit, this is a way of being that can disrupt our adherence to the patterns of this world and set our minds on things above, not on those below.
We see in the Epistles the labor of love required for mutual understanding between James the Jewish brother of Jesus and Bishop of the Jerusalem Church and Paul the Jewish Pharisee and Roman Citizen from Tarsus in Asia Minor and Peter the Jewish Fisherman from Capernaum in the Galilee.
Is the goal peace and calm or love and truth?
The Christians of Palestine say there can be no peace without justice; there can be no experiencing the peace of God if there is not first the righteous justice of God.
The path to peace is through love; but love is truth and we must speak the truth in love and we must love each other truthfully, which can cause conflict and misunderstanding and offense and disrupt thin films of conforming calm.
We can always be seeking calm in whatever situation we face, or we can walk into any situation in order to love - but they are not the same purpose or goal.
Seek love over calm. The point is not calm or no calm, but rather Truth in Love, the righteous justice of God that brings peace for all who want it.
Thank you for making it this far in my broken-hearted yearning to make sense of the violence in the Holy Land, the injustices, and the desire for God’s people to be light in the darkness. May Christ have mercy on us all.