As I write this, President Biden is in Israel affirming our nation’s support for that nation’s right to exist, a nation born of holocaust and hatred. At the same time, blame and rage are exchanged for the destruction of a hospital and the death of innocents. Horrors are heaped upon horrors. The brutal attack by Hamas is indefensible, erasing the lines between combatants and civilians and mocking all standards of universal morality. And now Israel responds with strikes in an urban setting where civilian casualties are inevitable. The two actions are not the same, but the suffering is.
There is no question that Hamas must be dealt with, but when today’s conflict ends, what follows? How can a just peace be found for Israelis and Palestinians alike? Both peoples know pain and carry memories of suffering and injustice. Suffering justifies rage, which begets suffering. Will the circle be unbroken?
I sit in the safety of my office tapping keys. I have no illusions of expertise or insights. I come to the silence of the cross. It isn’t a symbol most Palestinians or Israelis embrace, but in that wordless image is a strange small measure of hope, and right now, a small measure is the best I can find.
The cross speaks of divine presence. In the midst of the violence, God weeps for every child, every refugee, every family grieving, and God weeps for every person driven to hatred, for every soldier who must kill. The cross is presence. And the cross is more. It is a stop sign.
Throughout his earthly days, Christ resisted the world’s notions of power, and, as he neared the cross, he remained faithful to his holy way, refusing to strike back at those who struck him. There is something divine, cosmic, and salvific in that refusal. “It stops here,” God said at the cross. “I will take your worst, and I will not repay.” The cross is an ending that becomes a beginning. Easter follows Good Friday.
What is the future for Palestine and Israel? Can the present order give way to a new relationship? Look into the hearts of Palestinians and Israelis. They share the dreams common to all human beings. Listen to their prayers. They long for goodness, peace, wholeness, joy. Children of God, all. And these children of God carry memories of suffering and wrongs that can never be erased.
I will never grasp their pain, and I have no plan to offer. Silent, I long to hear someone say, “It stops here. We stop here.” Can those words be spoken by people in power? A simplistic wish, I know, but there’s something divine in it. Grace divine.
I have no great wisdom, only humility and prayer. I pray that God will hear the prayers of Palestinians and Israelis for peace with justice. I pray the prayer will bring us to silence, and silence to decision, and decision to an ending, and ending to a beginning, and the beginning to hope. I write words, but I see the cross.
Praying for grace,
Mark
My words here were sparked by a quotation I saw many years ago. In reflecting on the ongoing struggles, a Muslim Palestinian leader said, “What we need is the cross.”