The blessed birth of Christ is a great annual celebration for humans to renew their covenant with the message of love and mercy in the joy of the birth of this holy child. More than 20 centuries have passed since this blessed birth, without the eternal message of Christ convincing or committing humans to refrain from violence and bloodshed.
The teachings of the messenger of love and friendship are still strangely isolated, and what has taken over the world is tyranny and oppression rather than kindness and love. As if violence and injustice have left almost no part of the world untouched, but the complete picture of this tragic situation is the catastrophe that has occurred in the occupied territories, and for more than a year, the oppressed people of this region have been the main faces of this picture. Perhaps, inspired by Nikos Kazantzakis' famous fictional work (The Last Temptation of Christ), one can call the sorrow and anxiety of the Prophet of Love and Friendship for the victims of Gaza " Last Concern of Christ".
The blessed Eid of the birth of Christ this year has come at a time when his homeland, Palestine, is still the scene of naked violence by racists against defenseless people. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip recently announced the latest statistics of martyrs and wounded in the attacks of the Zionist regime's army on the Gaza Strip since October 7 of last year.
Accordingly, in the past 15 months, nearly 45,500 people have been martyred and nearly 108,000 have been injured. This statistic, if it is to include the missing, is even higher. Accordingly, more than 54,000 people in the Gaza Strip have been martyred or missing, more than 30,000 of whom were children and women. These crimes have occurred in the sacred land that is the birthplace of the prophet of love and kindness.
Christ in the sorrow of "neighbor"
Jesus, the son of Mary, was born 22 centuries ago in a region that has been the capital of naked violence in the world for almost 15 months. Among the places that are believed to be the birthplace of Christ, two cities in Palestine are closer to reality: Nazareth in northern Palestine, and Bethlehem in the West Bank. These two cities are today's distant and close neighbors of Gaza, and as such, Christ is the neighbor of yesterday and today of Gaza and has the right of neighborhood.
The concept of neighborhood in the law and teachings of Christ is one of the most fundamental religious and moral concepts. One of the most important teachings in the Holy Book is where it commands to love the neighbor and fellow human being. In the Gospel of Matthew, when the Jewish jurists ask Jesus, "What is the greatest commandment of the law?" His wise answer is: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:37). In this amazing saying, loving God is placed in the same rank as loving the neighbor.
For this reason, one must be sure that Christ, with the same love and mercy that he has for God, also loves his neighbors in Gaza and shares the grief and sorrow of these defenseless and helpless neighbors. Christmas, although a blessed and joyous occasion for the birth of the great prophet of mercy and love, can now be an opportunity for Christians to empathize with the neighbors of yesterday and today of Jesus. Gaza is the neighbor of Christ, and by extension, the neighbor of Christians and the Christian world. I wish the elders and leaders of the Church, in the days of the birth of the Prophet who considered loving the neighbor as loving God, had a clearer and more friendly empathy with the "neighbor" people.
Bitter experience of "loneliness"
According to the Gospels, the last words of Christ on the cross were a lament about "loneliness" and "abandonment". The Gospel of Matthew says that when they crucified Christ, the chief priests mocked him, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself.... Let Christ the King of Israel come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." (Matthew 27:41-42). It was at this moment that Jesus uttered his historic and immortal words, and immediately gave up his soul: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Christian mystics and theologians have considered this expression as the most loving complaint in history, because death on the cross is the harshest punishment and the most savage retribution for the most innocent life. Regardless of the correctness or incorrectness of the interpretations of this phrase, one cannot doubt that in our time, Christ would probably utter the same phrase about the most oppressed victims of Gaza.
The neighbors of Jesus in Gaza, despite their innocence and purity, seem to have been crucified by the verdict of the chief priests, subjected to the violence of an unbridled and shameful cross. Christ, today, repeats the same lament of loneliness and abandonment in the face of violence for the defenseless and innocent people of Gaza.
The massacre of these people is the retribution for their oppression and innocence. This is why the events in Gaza have created a human tragedy. This time, the people of Gaza are before the eyes of the world, feeling lonely and abandoned. From the Christian world and the guardians of the law of Christ, it is expected to break the silence and respond to the loneliness and abandonment of the inhabitants and refugees of Gaza, and support the lament of Christ.
Waiting for "miracle"
Christ, like all divine prophets, had miracles. According to history, he gave life to the dead and healed the sick. One of his miracles was to give sight to the blind.
The Gospel of John, in verses 1 to 15 of chapter 9, recounts the miracle of Jesus giving sight to the blind. In this Gospel, Jesus introduces himself as the "light of the world" and says, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (John 9:5). Perhaps the night that Christ said would come soon is our time. Now, more than ever, the world needs the miracle of the light to heal the blind eyes and consciences of the oppressors.
A multitude of blind tyrants rule the world, needing the healing of prophets like Christ. The oppressors, in the darkness of their minds, commit injustice to the innocent servants of God and have created a dark and gloomy world. Nothing is more necessary than the miracle of giving sight to these blind worshipers of darkness.
I wish that in the days of the birth of the Prophet who called himself the light of the world, this miracle would be repeated, and the blind eyes of the oppressors would be healed, and they would see the result of their cruelty and hard-heartedness. From Gaza to Nazareth or Bethlehem, there is no distance. Gaza, as a city torn by war and violence, is now in the anniversary of the birth of the neighbor, one eye is full of tears and the other is full of blood. Nevertheless, it awaits the miracles of Christ so that the dead consciences and the blind eyes and consciences without light and radiance are healed, and the flood of the crimes of racists is controlled. Policymakers and politicians who claim to be Christian need more than ever to ask for the miracles of Christ and other divine prophets to heal their blind eyes and consciences.
NOURNEWS