Remembering the Innocents
I woke up startled from a mid-afternoon nap yesterday (Saturday) when I heard shouting and sirens from the street outside. I quickly opened the window, only to realize that this house has a high stone wall as a backyard, protecting it from the road and giving no view of the current situation. Texting my friend, I decided it best to stay inside until I figured out the problem. A little while later, a call from Tyler who had been across the street playing frisbee relieved my anxiety. There had been a car wreck but fighting had not broken out and calm was more or less restored. I waited a while longer and then was invited to go over to the Brown’s residence. Mark Brown oversees things at Augusta Victoria (Jerusalem) with the Lutheran World Federation. So I walked across the street to find Tyler and company gathered at this house where we often met for volleyball games, advent meals, and a good time. Susanna Brown and some helpers were working on nachos and I went upstairs to see folks who had come. It was quite a few of us altogether.
Then I noticed the TV. Airstrikes in Gaza. It had begun. Everything started making sense. I was in shock but I could now understand the problem outside: a Palestinian Jerusalemite had run his car, presumably deliberately, into an Israeli police officer who was stopping vehicles just outside the hospital. Originally, I thought this was a sad, isolated event, but then I realized that it was quite likely related to the bombing of Gaza by Israel’s air forces. We were transfixed by the news a long time, distressed and saddened by the ever more gruesome stories unfolding. Over 200 dead and many many wounded. Of course, since the hospitals in Gaza had not been allowed any supplies for weeks, they were ill equipped for the injured. I too was surprised by the Sabbath day attack which coincided with the Muslim New Year’s Eve.
What could we do? I realized anew the helplessness I often feel in light of such enormous situations. We all knew Israel was planning a military response to Hamas’ rockets in southern Israel. But what aggression! 100 tons of bombs in only a few minutes. Schools were letting out. A Gazan rocket hit and killed a woman in Israel while many Israeli bombs killed hundreds of Gazans. Such senseless loss of life. Innocent people dead, people I now come to identify with in this beautiful land. I heard that a march was going on in Bethlehem and from what I could tell many Palestinians in the West Bank were responding to the Gazan attacks.
So Sunday came after a long night and I headed to church at Redeemer on what is known as “Dead Sunday” for its lack of attendance. There were a fair number of us though and I soon discovered that the day is known as the day for “Commemoration of the Holy Innocents”–a memorial of the Massacre described in Matthew, where King Herod orders all babies in Bethlehem and around killed to eliminate the threat of a Jewish Messiah figure. I am not sure what sort of historical basis, if any, there is, but Pastor Mark suggested that about 20 infants or more may have been killed. This theme, which gets recognized on a Sunday once in 7 years, struck an extremely emotional chord in me today. How fitting that we remember those who die as a result of indiscriminate violence today when bombs and rockets rain over Gaza/south Israel. Hundreds of Gazan Palestinians are dying and I imagine more Israelis will die before it’s all over.
The liturgy, though recited by sympathetic figures who know the pain we feel today, is almost unbearable. How could it be okay to God for so many people to suffer and die innocently? The first reading centers on Rachel crying for her children who will one day be avenged and return to their country–the psalm emphasizes the victorious Israelites who declare that God is on their side. Such scriptures (read here)
are impossible for me to reconcile to an all-loving God. How can God be only on one side? How can only one group be chosen? The Bible remains a mystery to me in this regard, especially since many are more than happy to use such passages to determine whose side God is on!
Pray with me for the people here–all the people Israeli, Palestinian, and others who are intricately connected to this place. Pray for an end to the bombing, an end to rocket launching, an end to the violence. Pray that ground troops are not sent in, that medicines and food do get in to Gaza. Pray that people’s actions in solidarity do not bring more violence. I am not in danger. I am not sure how Palestinians will continue to react to the crisis in Gaza but for now it means marches and strikes. While I am far from the bombing, the pain feels close at hand. Pray that the pain and suffering will be over soon. Remember the Innocents who are dying today and everyday.
