Harry Gunkel, 23 December 2023:

“It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Toys in every store…”

It is no profound observation that Christmas has become commodified and sanitized in our media-driven, possession-riddled world. That should probably not surprise us much because the essence of the Nativity is Incarnation – the divine becoming present amidst humankind – a Mystery of profound and cosmic consequences. No wonder we shy away from it and focus on the Who, When, and Where of the birth narrative, rather than the What. But with the current events in the Holy Land, Palestine and Israel, looking away will simply not do in 2023. If ever there was a time that begs us - compels us - to lean into the Mystery of Incarnation and try to make sense of it, this is it. Where can we find divine Incarnation in Gaza?

I recently saw this Advent message: “We are invited to journey with Joseph and Mary, considering their amazing calls to serve and how they responded in faith and obedience. We are invited to expect a great light and to find it lying in a manger.” Luke’s Gospel tells us that an Imperial decree required Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem to be “registered”. The circumstances of the nativity arose from a population transfer for the purpose of surveillance; there is no mention in the Gospel of faith or responding to any call other than imperial diktat. The “manger” scene has been so cleansed and pastoralized that its reality has been lost. Jesus’ birth most likely occurred in an underground space, cold, damp, dirty, infested with vermin, and co-habited by animals and their byproducts. Jesus’ birth was into hardship. The manger scene much closer to reality is the crèche this year at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem with the Christ child nearly completely buried in rubble, the Christmas of 2023 in Gaza.

And where is the “great light” to be found in Gaza this year where families are living in darkness and in wreckage without electricity? Of course, the Advent message referred to spiritual light, but Incarnation is not a magic spell or sparkly dust that can be dispersed to sanctify the world. Surely it is something in the flesh, something lived and experienced. I do not know where to find that in Gaza, and I will not insult the people of Palestine or belittle their incalculable suffering by claiming for them that Incarnation must be in their hope, in their faith, or in their resilience. I imagine people in Gaza now are experiencing lots of things: fear, sickness, hunger, grief, and anger. At this moment, it is difficult for me to imagine much hope in that mix. My friend Kareem in Gaza recently wrote, “reading about genocide is different than living it. I lost hope in humanity”. The people of Gaza, those still alive, have been made homeless, then told to move to the very edge of their land, and then further still (to where?!) if they want to avoid bombing. Asking them for resilience in the face of such monstrous crimes seems yet another cruelty. I will not tailor a spirituality for the people of Gaza that suits my needs and not theirs.

I wonder where the Incarnation is this year in the White House, in the U.S. Congress, in London, Berlin and Brussels where world leaders are enabling, weaponizing, and funding Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing; or in the corridors of the New York Times, CNN, and BBC who are cheerleading for it? How is the story of the Nativity heard in those places, as a call for more power and militarism, more wealth, more land, more domination? Where do leaders and influencers see themselves in the nativity narrative, as the Christ child or as the imperialist? Is their Christmas story one of peace or of Empire?

Many will say, “God is with the people of Gaza in their pain.” I hope that is true, I want it to be true and for it to bring solace, but I’m not really sure what it means. Does it make their pain less? If it were me, I’d wonder, if God is with me in my pain, why can’t God stop this happening? But I hope that there is comfort and that that comfort will endure because this isn’t over yet. I hope God will be with them as more people die and when they are forced onto strange new lands, becoming refugees again, some for the third time. I hope there will be comfort when their former lands and homes in the Gaza Strip are turned into one of the world’s largest military bases or when colonists are settled there in the newly created land without people so they can make it bloom.

Maybe I’m looking at it in the wrong way. Maybe Incarnation won’t be found in large, global peace movements or in conversion of governments into instruments of good. Maybe the Divine will be found this season in Gaza in the love that is keeping families together in the dark as they share what little there is to eat, in their helping each other as they trek in search of safety, as they join their neighbors to dig through the rubble, or as they give thanks for one more day together. Maybe that’s the only thing left to them that is life-affirming and can’t be taken away. And isn’t that redolent of many people who Jesus encountered in his ministry?

Maybe it is also in the love that those of us out here in the world are sending their way, willing them to feel our support as we attend rallies, write and tell the truth about them, and wear our keffiyehs. Maybe our Christmas this year will not be in the hymns or candles or gifts, but in our support for each other in our own fear and grief and rage, in our lost jobs and lost friends, and in our constant anxiety wondering who of our friends is still alive.

The circumstances of the Nativity were messy and overlaid with politics, and for 2000 years we have insisted on making it silent, tranquil, pastoral, and bathed in a golden light. Jesus was not born a prince; he was not born into the aristocracy or halls of power. He was, in the vernacular, born on the wrong side of the tracks among a people who lived under the boot of empire. He ended up executed by that empire for his dissidence. Many of us have lost track of that story, caught up in a Church and its hierarchy, canons, and rubrics, or preoccupied with myths of nationalism or ecumenical guilt. Have we traded the abundant theology of the Divine among us for theologies of scarcity and borders?

Christmas is in Gaza this year, one of the places least festive, least joyous in the world. We will find Christmas there because its suffering is where Jesus points us throughout his life and ministry, because it is a place where we can go to do justice and right.

My favorite Christmas song is Robert MacGimsey’s, Sweet Little Jesus Boy:

Sweet little Jesus boy

Born a long time ago

Sweet little holy child

And we didn’t know who you was