Holy Land, Holy People

Sea of Galilee at Sunrise

Sometimes when you return from a pilgrimage or a journey of discovery, it can be hard to find the words to explain your experiences. There is a deep need to express what you have seen and heard and an equally deep sense that no words can do it justice. Especially if you have borne witness to great suffering, words can seem overwhelming inadequate, even impossible. There is a sense that all witness must be silent, because when words are spoken they cannot say all of what must be said; there is also a sense that all witnesses must speak, in order for the world to hear what they have witnessed.

In my visit to Palestine, I went with two goals: first, a religious goal, to see the land that Jesus walked and to see the place where the Jesus movement started, where good news was preached to the poor. The second goal was to see the reality, on the ground, of the Palestinian people and, as a Christian cleric, the reality of Palestinian Christians.

I saw a land of great beauty. A land that is as ordinary as any other place—and as holy as any other land. I touched the rocks and sea and stones that Jesus may have and I wept where he likely was imprisoned before he died. I saw the words he first preached in Nazareth inscribed in a church there, in the lovely Arabic script; “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, to proclaim good news to the poor.”

The altar at Christ's Church, Nazareth

I worshipped on a holy land.

And, yet, it was the words of Bassam Aramin that struck me as the most powerful spoken on the trip; “We are more holy than any holy land.” 

It is easy to simply follow the prescribed order of things—to remain a tourist on a tour with other Christian clergy—to goggle at the plethora of churches built over every possible site and peruse the hundreds of gift shops with souvenirs and tokens. To turn away from the suffering of the people on a land called holy in the name of worshiping the holy.

That is the easiest thing to do.

It is harder to listen to Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian living under occupation who told a story of his imprisonment and torture in Israeli jails as a young man and the death of his 11 year old daughter, shot at a checkpoint coming home from school. Harder to listen to the shopkeepers of Bethlehem, behind the great Wall dividing the land, who all said the same thing; “We live in a prison. What are we supposed to do?” Harder the listen to Rev Nael Abu Rahmoun, pastor of a church in Nazareth, who said; “We are all forgotten here.”

 

The wall that divides Bethlehem

 

Holy lands are easy to see. But we often turn away from the suffering of holy people.

As I continue to reflect over the coming weeks, I am going to tell my story of encountering a holy land, but I am also going to tell of encountering the suffering of holy people.