“Your Brother Will Rise Again”

                         


38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ ⁴¹So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴²I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ ⁴³When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

It is quite surreal to be here in this time of history and now during Holy Week. Like pilgrims before me, I have visited the holy sites, the ancient ruins where Biblical events are said to have occurred. On Maundy Thursday I will follow a procession to Gethsemane to pray with hundreds of others and on Good Friday at 6:30 AM I will walk the Via Dolorosa (The stations of the cross or the Way of Sorrows) and pray.

I was assigned check point duty for Easter Sunday and had been thinking of creative ways to welcome the risen Christ in that Holy Saturday hellish place when we learned that the checkpoint would be closed for nine days for the celebration of Passover. So though this was somewhat welcome news for our Bethlehem team who often find our work at the checkpoint difficult, it is bad news for Palestinians for it means no work during this time and limited access to Jerusalem for Christian Palestinians who wish to go and pray at the holy sites.

A Christian colleague of mine went to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to join the procession down the Mount of Olives only to leave out of disgust when she saw the procession was being led by military soldiers. “It is one thing to have the soldiers present during Jesus’ grand entrance on a donkey into Jerusalem, but it is quite another to allow the soldiers to lead this holy procession,” she said. Occupation was and is still a real and present reality but we have choices about how we will respond and whom we will follow or allow to lead us.

Reading scripture is always a reading of the Word and the World, as many of you know. The World I am living in is exploding with bombs and murders, assassinations and military plans for another siege on Gaza. And this is on top of the already abhorred system of “collective punishment” by the Israeli government for suspected acts of terror, the daily attacks on the village of Awarta, the scheduled 950 new units for Har Homa settlement which already claims most of the hilltops surrounding Bethlehem.

The Arab Spring is blossoming with almond and fruit trees, poppies and wild flowers and shoots of hope like the possibility of a Palestinian State in September, However, most of the people I know, Palestinian and other internationals, believe that leadership needs to change before this can happen. Some predict violence in May while others continue to hope for a nonviolent change.

This is the world I am living in and I am not immune from the “stench of death” rising all around me. It intermingles with the fragrant Jasmine and the citrus of the lemons ripening. It surrounds me like an invisible weight that is always present and sometimes felt physically and always psychically.

As many of you know in the past two weeks there have been many deaths, all named and some accounted for here in Gaza and the West Bank. There are two, which because of their proximity in time and because each of these young men were leaders and activists in their communities, stand out.  Those are the deaths of Juliano Merkhamis, and Victorrio Arrigori.  Juliano, son of a Palestinian-Israeli Christian father and a Jewish-Israeli mother was founded of Jenin Refugee Camp’s Freedom Theater in the West Bank. He was brutally murdered in a car near his home city of Jenin by masked men.


Victorrio was a veteran International Solidarity Activist from Italy who came to Gaza via on one of the boats that broke the blockade.  He is said to have been hung by a radical Salafist group in Gaza. He was “an international” like me who came as a peacemaker to try and make a difference. Like me, he knew that his life was both privileged and on the line. In fact, he often put his body on that line in defense of Palestinian farmers or fisherman.

You were and are the earth-force of the struggle against injustice.  You will always hold us up and inspire us like the Palestinian fisherman you loved so much, we and all others fighting for the fundamentals of life throughout the world commit ourselves to seeing your vision through. 

Ciao, my friend. Jeff Halper, Director for the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions 

on Remembering Vik 

These martyrs were mourned publicly last Friday and Sunday night in vigils on Manger Square. On Friday night, we hundred or so mourners sat or stood around a black cloth that had draped a cage like crate created by the unity youth to represent imprisonment a few hours before.  I had photographed this cage earlier in the week to include on my Lenten post now its black cloth was spread out like a blanket. 

The weeping had begun.  Friday’s vigil was somber, as all of us were not only mourning the death of this brave activist but the potential death of his dream for a Palestinian boat to join the Flotilla. We were also mourning the death of yet another international, a fact that I did not wish to dwell on. I was doing OK, more or less, until the Corries came and joined the circle and I saw that look again on their faces
Their loss and presence brought home again what we are all up against and the toll it takes on those who dare to speak out for justice and peace.  

On Sunday, along side the Church of the Nativity, we again gathered and remembered the lives of both Juliano and Victorrio. Their pictures were taped together. They were joined and we who had gathered were joined with them. Later this poster appeared on the Separation Wall in Bethlehem near the Palestinian woman weeping.


Jesus wept for Lazarus and for the women weeping. His tears joined theirs. My tears joined all those sitting and standing illuminated by small wavering tea lights. Our contacts, people we work with, made impromptu speeches of appreciation while others simply came up and hugged or thanked us.


In our Gospel story, Jesus comes late to Mary and Martha’s home. Mary chastises him for not getting there sooner because he might have been able to do something to prevent his death. I identify with this passage because we accompaniers are often there after the tragedy has occurred and there is always this wonder or concern that if we had only gotten there sooner… We arrive after the olive trees have been uprooted or after the soldiers have come into the village and terrorized everyone with their pointed guns and picture taking. We come after they have demolished the house or tent or simply ransacked a house. What if we had been able to be there before? Could we in our magic EAPPI vests stop “an incursion?” A wrongful death about to happen?  What would happen if we actually came in the middle of the conflict like the ISM activists? Our accompaniment comes usually after the fact and we often wonder if it is enough.

At the Sabeel Center last week while studying and talking about this Gospel text together, one Palestinian man said rather simply, “I am Lazarus. I feel entombed by this occupation. I can’t move because of this very large stone.”  The stone of occupation is large and until it is removed there can be no liberation, no sustainable development in the Occupied Territories. According to Naim Ateek, the leader of our discussion, the removable of the stone is only the first step. The second step is to come out and risk being alive again and free. This is Jesus’ action, his command. But this too isn’t the end of the story. We must be unbound. We must allow ourselves to be unbound by others.

In yet another Bible study during a Prayer Meeting on this same passage up at the Tent of Nations, on Monday evening, Daoud Nasser put it this way, “We must move the stone and do the unbinding. This is our work for justice making.”

Weeping is a start. Removing the stone is imperative but freedom will only come when we dare to come out and live with bandages and all, when we allow those in our community to unbind us. It is a collective action. Liberation is a process and does not happen right away with the removal of the stone or even the coming out.  It requires the community to work together for healing and reconciliation.

This is the hope of this Lenten Gospel reading. Our brothers and sisters will rise again but this rising depends not only Jesus but us who remember not only those who have died in the struggle but the vision for peace they inspired in us. We remember martyrs not because they died but because they dared to live resurrected lives of hope.

I end with this sending prayer, which I wrote for the Prayer Meeting. I share it now with you so that you too may go forth knowing that there is no way to avoid death but there will also be a rising.

Sending

God of infinite Compassion,

You have wept with us

and commanded us to remove all the stones

that block our freedom.

You have called us back to life.

Help us leave this holy mount

unoccupied, unbound

free now to follow you,

be with you in your passion

and to be not afraid to face

the powers and principalities

of yet another Empire’s grasping death hold.

Let us go forth and serve

the one who suffers with us and for us

by working for justice and peace

with humility, grace, and love.

Amen

Rev. Loren McGrail

EA Bethlehem Team

lorenmcgrail@gmail.com