The RESURRECTION of OUR LORD: SUNRISE WORSHIP

Dale assisted by Pastor Karl Reko of the ELCA

Pastor Judith Williams's daughter and family with Stockwell Day.

Easter Breakfast at the Brown's

Bishop Younan preaching at the joint Arabic-English 9:00 a.m. service at the Church of the Redeemer

Entrance to the Garden Tomb

Easter Sunday was a memorable day in many ways. First of all, on Saturday morning, Mark Holman, pastor of the English speaking congregation at Redeemer, called me and asked me to preach and preside at the sunrise service. He had been fighting a strep infection all week and realized on Saturday morning that it was getting the best of him. So, I was on! Saturday wasn’t quite as relaxing as I had expected.

We gathered at 5:15 am. Our congregation holds its sunrise service in a small stone amphitheatre just to the southeast of AVH on the edge of the Mount of Olives looking east toward the Dead Sea and the mountains of Jordan. The mountains prevent us from seeing the first light of dawn, but rather we are bathed in a more general light that gets brighter as the sun begins to rise above the mountain peaks.

Mark had already prepared a sermon. He told me that I could do as I pleased with it or dispense with it completely. It was a fine sermon. Fortuitously Mark and I are in concert regarding the political situation here in the West Bank, and neither of us hesitates to expression his opinion. So I took advantage of Mark’s preparation, made a few minor changes and additions to make it sound “Dale”, and preached it. I have attached the sermon to this post.

Our Easter sunrise congregation was comprised of regular congregants, numerous expats, students from Hebrew University just down the road on Mount Scopus, and a major surprise! Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, was there representing PM Harper and the Canadian government.

After worship, we all crossed the street to Mark and Susanne Brown’s home for Easter breakfast. Mr. Day joined us. The temperature had climbed into the mid 20’s C and the sun was shining. It was only 7 am. The earliest and hottest Easter in memory, I was told.

At 9 am the English speaking congregation joined the Arabic congregation at Redeemer where Dale assisted in serving communion. Bishop Younan preached in Arabic and summarized in English.

After the 9 am worship we walked a few steps to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and took a peek at the crowds around Jesus’ tomb, and then walked through the suq an out the Damascus Gate to the other place on Nablus Road where some say that Jesus was buried – the Garden Tomb. The crowds were impossible and the Israelis had blocked the entrance so the pilgrims had to enter single file. That was our Easter morning!

What a joy it was to preside and preach at the Easter Sunrise Worship, and what a blessing to do it all here in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives!

SERMON: “Look Not In, But Out”

(prepared by Pastor Mark Holman, and edited and preached by Pastor Dale Finch)

Through early morning darkness, they made their way to the sepulcher. The two Mary’s simply needed to “look in” on the scene. They had been there when the tomb was sealed but they just needed to look in on the burial site, much the way many of us have done on our first return to the grave of someone we love. Was everything all right, they wondered? Were all things as they left them? Had it all been real – the grief, the pain, the loss?

The last thing they were expecting was that the whole world had been shaken to its core. Perhaps the rumbling earthquake was a clue. But then, such tremors are not that rare here in Jerusalem. We’ve had a few minor ones in the last few months. Expecting nothing more than a sealed tomb, the two Mary’s trudged in darkness to the vault.

But, the women soon discovered, the whole world - more than that - the whole cosmos had changed. And for the rest of their lives – and the lives of all believers to come – they would be looking, not in, but out!
Most of us have heard the Easter stories from the four gospel writers so many times that we’ve blurred the four into one composite. The women coming to prepare Jesus’ body – Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the gardener who was really Jesus - Peter & the beloved disciple running to the tomb – Mary Magdalene sent by the risen Christ to announce the Good News.

But, today’s account from Matthew is different and more pointed - it deserves consideration on its own. Let me mention just two of the unique elements in Matthew’s account.

First, only Matthew tells of the women’s instant recognition of the Resurrected Lord. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene immediately fell to Jesus’ feet and worshipped him. No longer was he merely son and friend, but Lord and Savior.

Second, in Matthew’s account, we hear the unique instructions pointing to Galilee. First the angel, and then Jesus urged them, “Go, tell the disciples to go to Galilee.” That’s where the believers would see him.
Reflecting upon this last point, Dr. Deborah Krause , professor of New Testament at Eden Theological Seminary wrote:

When the angel’s direction is read in the context of the whole gospel story, Galilee seems less a specific place than it is a direction to a particular kind of ministry. Galilee is the place of Jesus’ ministry to the “least.” There he crossed over the boundaries that separated the clean from the unclean. There he ate with the tax collectors and sinners and proclaimed all of God’s children holy. It is to this activity that Mary and Mary are to direct Jesus’ disciples. It is in the mission of Galilee that the disciples and all of Jesus’ followers will see the risen Lord.


I know that the gathering of worshippers on this spot at Easter sunrise has become a tradition for our congregation and community. Before first light we leave our customary place of worship – just 60 paces from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre - to gather here on the Mount of Olives. From this highest point in East Jerusalem, on the campus of the Lutheran World Federation’s Augusta Victoria Hospital, we come together in community looking East and awaiting the new day.
We greet one another with “He has risen! Alleluia! He has risen indeed!”
This drama, played out every Easter morning, serves as a small but important
testament to God’s message that death has no power over life. We remember that
first morning when the earth shook and the whole Cosmos was forever changed.

It is a thrilling Easter worship experience; yet, in many ways, the sunlit view from the Mount of Olives is pretty much the same as yesterday. Just like yesterday, before the sunlight hits the Mount of Olives, the beams have to go across the imposing Ma’ale Adummim, the largest of the illegal Israeli settlements built on confiscated Palestinian land. This settlement, housing over 30,000 Israeli settlers, has been built in violation of international law and many United Nations resolutions.

Today, the population of Christians in the Holy Land is shrinking in numbers. Christians now comprise less than 2% of the Palestinian population. It was close to 20% in 1948. The majority of remaining Christians (including Lutherans) are Palestinians whose religious roots go back many generations. An outsider looking in on today’s worshippers may wonder, “What is so new about this day? What are the signs that God’s gift of life has shaken off the clutches of death?”

Also, same as yesterday, the imposing “Separation Wall” stands in plain view as it snakes across the land of the West Bank. 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.

This barrier uncoiling across the landscape is so formidable, that only an earthquake – or the Easter power of God – could shake its foundation and stop its creeping path across the land and its long-established communities.

What really has changed? What sustains peoples’ Easter hope of new life?

In Mohammed Alatar’s fine film, “The Iron Wall” there are many voices of people suffering oppression and striving for justice in Palestine. One man, Samean Khoury, from the Palestinian Forum for Peace and Democracy, speaks of his hope seen through the eyes of faith and with a long view of history. Despite his years in prison, despite the current hardships of the Palestinian people, despite loss upon loss, he holds fast to hope saying, “It is hard to be optimistic, given the circumstances we live under. However, I am optimistic. One day we will be free. I have no doubt about it. Definitely, one day we will be free. No doubt whatsoever.”

As we believers gather on the Mount of Olives today, let’s not dwell either on this momentary sunrise well-being, or yesterday’s powerlessness. Let’s remember the voices of the angel and the Risen Lord: “Tell the others, and go to Galilee.”
Trusting in the long view of God’s salvation history, believers today – here and abroad – roll up their sleeves and, through concrete acts of mercy and justice, join in the unfolding of God’s new day of life.

If we were to walk just one hundred paces Southward. We would have another remarkable view. We would gaze across 15 dunums (about 4 acres) of land that will soon be the construction site for the Mount of Olives Housing Project located on this campus of the Lutheran World Federation. This project will provide 84 apartments for Palestinian Christians – Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical - who will form a new community that is not fractured by the separation wall. This community will provide safe, secure and reasonably-priced living quarters for Palestinian Christians who, without it, would have no choice but to leave Jerusalem.
With the generous financial support of several European national church bodies, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, as well as of congregations and individuals worldwide, the Lutheran World Federation hopes to break ground for this project in 2009.

Support of this project is just one way for the faithful to heed the risen Christ’s command to “go into Galilee” his work of bringing justice to oppressed people.

About 500 CE theologian John Chrysostom ended an Easter homily like this:

First and last alike, receive your reward
Rich and poor, rejoice together!
Conscientious and lazy, celebrate the day!
You who have kept the fast, and you who have not,
Rejoice this day, for the table is bountifully spread!
Feast royally for the calf is fatted
Let no one go away hungry
Partake, all, of the banquet of faith.
Enjoy the bounty of the Lord’s goodness!
Then, dear friends, filled with God’s grace, go into Galilee and finish the work that Jesus started.

AL-MASIH QAM – HAKKAN QAM

CHRIST IS RISEN – HE IS RISEN INDEED

PS: Please see our Easter article in the Kitchener Record http://news.therecord.com/Life/faith/article/326174

MAUNDY THURSDAY & GOOD FRIDAY

Well, one thing different from any other Holy Saturday, and from any other March 22 in my memory, is the temperature. It’s 29 degrees C. Each day of Holy Week has got just a bit warmer.

There are other things that make this Holy Week different, apart from weather and celebrating it in Jerusalem. The continuing bombardment and blockade of Gaza which is like a gigantic concentration camp! Tension in Jerusalem because of the killing of the seven yeshiva students gunned down by a Palestinian gunman seeking revenge for the more than 100 civilians killed by the Israelis in Gaza, followed by the retaliation by Israeli soldiers gunning down 4 Palestinians in Bethlehem for no apparent reason other than being known as activitists! Such is life in this part of the world.

It’s a melancholy week too. Our friends are leaving, or getting ready to leave. Shannon, who worked for Sabeel, left for the US on Friday. Susanne left last week. Kendra is leaving next week. Diana is returning to Germany next week. Our good friend Gillian is packing to leave in a few days. David, also with Sabeel, came back from Turkey expecting a 3-month visa but was given only a month to pack up and get out. Maybe he’ll be able to have it extended, but Sabeel is an organization that promotes liberation theology, and so probably not!

Oh yes! March 20 was the Milad an Nabi (the prophet’s birthday) and so we experienced longer calls-to-prayer and more celebratory fireworks and music from the Muslim communities than usual. And the Jews celebrated Purim this weekend, dressing as devils and clowns and going just a little crazy as they remember what Esther did for the Jewish people during the Babylonian exile. Interesting ingredients in the Jerusalem Triduum mix!

We gathered at Redeemer for the multilingual Maundy Thursday liturgy at 4:30 pm and then walked in procession through the suq to Lion’s Gate, and then across the Kidron Valley to St. Mary Magdalene Russian Orthodox Church on the western slope of the Mount of Olives just above the Garden of Gethsemane for final prayers.

Up at 5 am on Good Friday to make it to the 1st Station of the Cross just inside St. Stephen’s gate by 6:30 am! Lutherans and Anglicans followed the Via Dolorosa, stopping at each of the first nine Stations for readings and prayers. The last five Stations are in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where we could not go, and so we venerated the last five Stations in the few metres between Redeemer and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the completed the Good Friday liturgy in the Redeemer sanctuary.

As we followed the Via Dolorosa, we were assailed with the activity and noises of an awakening suq, and jostled up against shops to make way for the various carts, some motorized, that bring goods to the vendors. We were just a curiosity! It must have been like that when Jewish carried his cross through the Old City. Just an interruption and curiosity to the people he was dying for!

PALM SUNDAY WHERE IT HAPPENED!

Bethphage lies at the bottom of the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. That’s where Jesus asked his disciples to go find him a donkey to ride on as he made his way into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. It seems as if Jesus’ reputation as a miracle-worker had preceded him. I always had the feeling that the reception he got must have surprised him, but, of course, the Jews of Jesus’ time were looking for a messiah, and many of them thought Jesus was the one they were waiting for. So, they welcomed him with palm branches and shouts of “Hosanna”, believing him to be the great leader who would rally an army behind him and drive the occupying Romans out of Judea. How disappointed the Jews must have been when they heard Jesus’ message of peace and love of enemy.

Bethphage was once upon a time an easy walk from Bethany where Jesus raised Lazarus. Today the Israeli separation wall gets in the way. Bethany is outside the Jerusalem “bubble”, and Bethphage is inside. If Jesus and his friends had wanted to walk from Bethany to Bethphage this Palm Sunday, they would have had to go several kilometres out of their way to an Israeli checkpoint to present their travel permits. If they were living in the West Bank, they wouldn’t have got to Bethphage at all! West Bankers don’t get into Jerusalem unless they work there, and Jesus could not have claimed a place of employment.

Palm Sunday 2008 was a beautiful, sunny day with a clear blue sky and a temperature in the low 20's. The procession began at Lazarus’s tomb in Bethany and got as far as the separation wall on the western edge of the town. It was for West Bank Palestinian Christians who are not permitted to enter Jerusalem.

Those of us on the Jerusalem side of the wall gathered at the Bethphage Church with its beautiful murals depicting Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There were hundreds of us pilgrims! We first jammed into the church to have our palm and olive branches blessed, and then we assembled outside to begin our ascent of the Mount of Olives.

Beside the church the ruins of a house demolished by the Israeli authorities are a stark reminder of the Israeli occupation.

Troupes of Palestinian brownies, cubs, scouts, and guides representing various Christian congregations led the procession, followed by vested clergy and community officials in their traditional garb. We were well guarded by gun-toting Israeli soldiers. We reached the top of the Mount of Olives just above Dominus Flevit and went down the west side past the Garden of Gethsemane. We crossed the Kidron Valley and entered Old Jerusalem through Lion’s Gate, ending the procession in the precincts of St. Anne Cathedral where a closing liturgy was read by the priests of St. Anne.

A MUST-READ!

A recent house demolition in the West Bank, Palestinian territory,

used by the Israelis to force Palestinians out of land they wish to occupy.

The book that I’m challenging you to read completely erased any lingering doubts I may have had about what has taken place here up to and after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Reeling from the guilt and horror of the holocaust, the world supported the wishes and demands of the Israeli Zionists, ignoring or showing indifference to their hidden agenda, and allowed the Palestinians to take the blame for being authors of their own fate and to be painted as terrorists. This book does not advocate anti-Semitism but it does clearly lay the blame for the situation here at the feet of Israeli policy and the indifference and lack of understanding of the rest of the world.

In his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Dr. Ilan Pappe describes the attitude of the Palestinians to yet another conquest in 1947-8. “Over the centuries, the country had been passed from one hand to another, sometimes belonging to European or Asian invaders and sometimes to parts of Muslim empires. However, the peoples’ lives had continued more or less unchanged: they toiled the land or conducted their trade wherever they were, and quickly resigned themselves to the new situation until it changed once again. Hence, villagers and city dwellers alike waited patiently to see what it would mean to be part of either a Jewish state or any other new regime that might replace British rule. Most of them had no idea what was in store for them, that what was about to happen would constitute an unprecedented chapter in Palestine’s history: not a mere transition from one ruler to another, but the actual dispossession of the people living on the land.”

The 1948 Israeli War of Independence involved one of the largest forced migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages destroyed. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called “ethnic cleaning”.

Ethnic cleansing is defined as expulsion by force in order to homogenise the ethnically mixed population of a particular region or territory. The purpose of expulsion is to cause the evacuation of as many residents as possible by all means at the expeller’s disposal. The end result of such acts is the creation of a refugee problem. Ethnic cleansing has come to be defined as a crime against humanity, punishable by international law. Ethnic cleansing continues here in the Holy Land today.

In his groundbreaking book, renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population, a strategy that continues to the present day. Dr. Pappe’s vivid and timely account sheds new light on the origins and development of the Palestine-Israel conflict, and is indispensable for anyone wanting to understand the situation in the Middle East.

Dr. Pappe, formerly of the University of Haifa, and no longer welcome in his country as a result of his research, holds the Chair in History at the University of Exeter, and is the author of a number of influential books on the Middle East, including A History of Modern Palestine, The Modern Middle East and The Israel/Palestine Question.

GAZA: LET'S STOP THE CARNAGE

Dale took part in a protest on March 3 against Israeli aggression in Gaza. Unrest is growing in East Jerusalem. There were demonstrations on Sunday at the Ramallah and Bethlehem checkpoints. Green Palestinian flags are appearing here and there in the city, and there was a tire-burning on the main street of At Tur just down the hill from AVH. There are reports of a Palestinian teen having been shot near Ramallah by an Israeli settler, and skirmishes and shooting at the Bethlehem checkpoint.

On March 3 mounted Israeli policemen patrolled Sultan Suleiman Street at the Herod and Damascus Gates, and Salhadin St. was blocked by soldiers. Unrest continues to grow as the number of deaths among civilians continues to mount in Gaza. Tragically children have been among the almost 100 victims.

Israeli ground forces have withdrawn from northern Gaza without being able to stop the firing of Kassam and a few Katusha rockets into the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. Of course, Hamas is claiming victory, but what price glory with all the Palestinian dead! The Hamas rockets are homemade and inaccurate but the can be deadly, and cause panic among the Israeli population. The Israeli response was, and is, egregiously disproportionate, but Israel had to respond to the single Israeli civilian death in Sderot this past week for internal political reasons.

Israeli claims that the bombardment will stop if the Hamas rockets stop. Why doesn’t Hamas stop and call Israel’s bluff in order to save innocent lives? But, even if the latter were to happen, Gaza is still a big concentration camp for Palestinians living in Gaza; Israel would still control exit and entry of people and goods, air space, and access to the Mediterranean. It wouldn’t take long for Palestinian frustration to reach a violent level again.

The March 3 demonstration took place on the steps leading from Sultan Suleiman St. down to the Damascus gate. The demonstrators were mostly Palestinian women with a few of us expats mixed in. They shouted slogans and sang songs. We held up signs in Arabic and English that criticized Israeli aggression. Armed Israeli soldiers and police were present on the periphery of the constantly growing crowd, and toward the end of the demonstration a reinforcement of soldiers arrived with tear-gas masks in hand, but thankfully the Israelis kept their distance. The demonstrators made their point and went home.

Canadians and Americans and Europeans need to get the message. The Palestinians are the victims here. Israel continues to flaunt international law and UN decisions as the land-grab and displacement of the Palestinian population continue. Only pressure from the West will make the Israelis “sit up and take notice”!

IMAD'S & SALIBA'S ORDINATION: AN HISTORIC OCCASION

GETTING READY

Mark Holman, Mark Brown, Dale & Sr. Sylvia

Ordinands Saliba & Imad

The Grandma who almost missed it

Celebrating their 1st Communion

A contemplative crucifer

About to cut the Ordination cake

Proud parishoners

Pastors Imad & Saliba

More proud parishoners

March 2 was Imad Haddad’s and Saliba Rishmawi’s big day. At worship earlier that same day rumour had it that their ordination might have to be postponed because of what could be the beginning of a 3rd intifada in the West Bank. On Sunday, March 2, most Palestinian businesses in East Jerusalem were closed in protest against the worsening situation in Gaza, and, in the past, occasions such as ordinations have had to be cancelled because the Israelis often close checkpoints and restrict movement in the Old City when there is trouble. Imad’s and Saliba’s congregations are on the Bethlehem side of the segregation wall, and so family, friends, fellow pastors, children’s choirs, and congregants would have to go through Israeli security.

Well, they almost all made it. When we heard that the mother and grandmother of one of the ordinands had not been granted travel permits to come from the Bethlehem side to Jerusalem, we pulled some strings and got them through. The Israelis wouldn’t let the Beit Sahour children’s choir into Jerusalem, but the Beit Jala choir and band were there to sing and play. Why did the Israelis refuse permits to Mom and Grandma? Why one choir and not the other? Who knows?

And so it happened in spite of all the stumbling blocks! Bishop Younan ordained Imad and Saliba into the Ministry of Word and Sacrament at Redeemer Lutheran in Old Jerusalem. Imad will be serving as assistant pastor in Beit Sahour, and Saliba as assistant pastor in Beit Jala. It was an historic occasion because it’s the first time in the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) that two pastors have been ordained at the same time. The ELCJHL doesn’t have many placements for pastors with only six churches: Redeemer in Jerusalem, Christmas Lutheran in Bethlehem, Reformation Lutheran in Beit Jala, Beit Sahour Lutheran Church, Hope Lutheran in Ramallah, and Good Shepherd Lutheran in Amman, Jordan. Less than 2% of the Palestinian population is Christian, and most of the Christians are Greek Orthodox. So, there aren’t many Lutherans, and as Christians emigrate from Palestine because of political tension and an uncertain future, there are fewer Christians (and Lutherans) each year.

As the ordination ended, the grandmother who almost didn’t make it shouted out congratulations and was joined by other female family members in a sustained ululation, a high pitched sound Arab women emit in celebration of events such as graduations and ordinations. It was also a sound of grieving for the almost 100 Palestinian children, women and men who had been killed during the past week in Gaza.

The reception was a joyous event with a piece of cake for everyone.

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