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As I journey home, back to a place of safety, comfort, and some sense of “normal,” I can’t help but think of the friends I have met along this pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Friends that will have a lasting impact on my life and faith. I share this brief reflection with the people who call a Western North Dakota Synod congregation their faith home.

I’ve tried to make this trip three times in the past four years, but have not been able to because of strange things getting in the way – a global pandemic, an extended and unexpected hospital stay, etc. The fourth time was the charm. What is sitting with me now, and I believe will probably sit with me for a lifetime, is how different my expectations of this trip were as I prepared to travel and the reality of the experience as the trip has now concluded.

The psalmist challenges us, “For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.” [Psalm 22:8-9]

Truth be told, I expected to see some of the holy sites. I expected to be amazed and grateful, and maybe a little cynical at some of them. A bit too much like Disneyland and less sacred. I expected to eat fantastic food – especially the olives and hummus. I expected to meet nice people – especially Palestinian friends.

What I didn’t expect was the way the Holy Spirit would use this experience to form relationships with fellow children of God that will last forever even though our interactions were very brief. I didn’t expect to have transformational faith experiences by simply touching a stone at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, kneeling before the manger of the Christ-child, standing on the beaches of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus called his first disciples, or singing a Christmas hymn in the Shepherd’s Fields. Holy moments of conversation with fellow faith leaders like Archbishop Hosam, who serves as the Archbishop of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem, or the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos II, or our gracious host Bishop Ibrahim Azar from the Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. These holy sites and spiritual leaders have impacted the faith of God’s children for centuries. I’d be lying if I said that they hadn’t impacted my own faith journey.

I also didn’t expect to learn so much about occupation and genocide and apartheid and colonization on this pilgrimage. I didn’t expect to meet people who are living with these atrocities each and every day of their life. After all, it’s 2024. These things don’t happen anymore, do they?  I didn’t expect to be returning home not only to pray for my Palestinian sisters and brothers in Christ, but also to try and bring voice to so many of them who feel like they no longer have a voice.

I didn’t expect to encounter hope in Christ when everything seems so hopeless.

“My prayer for the church in Palestine, and around the world,” offers the Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac in his book The Other Side of the Wall, “is that God moves our inner spirits to cry and lament the things that are wrong and broken in our communities, nations, and even in our churches…Lamenting our gateway to restoration, just as the cross is our pathway to the resurrection.” During our visit with Pastor Isaac, he passionately reminded us that, “Yes, Jesus died on the cross. But that was not the final chapter. He died so that he and his followers might live again. His death paved the way for a new life and a new beginning. His crucifixion and resurrection serve as an example that life from death is possible…And so today we lament in hope because we believe in the God of resurrection and hope.”

The Holy Land is a land unlike any other. It is a convergence of sacred space for Jews, Muslims, and Christians. It is a land that for centuries has been shared among these three ancient faith traditions. And for the past century or so, it is a land that is becoming less and less welcoming to Christians. Just a few decades ago, nearly one-third of the population of the Holy Land was Christian. Today, less than two percent of the population is Christian. And with each passing day, it is a land that is becoming more and more polarized, political, and divided.

Bishop Ibrahim Azar serves as the shepherd for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). The ELCJHL is a global companion to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the church I am called to serve. We had the opportunity to meet with Bishop Azar several times during this pilgrimage. At one of our evening dinners, he said something that I believe will shape my understanding of what it means to “strive for justice and peace in all the world” as we promise to do in our baptism and ordination vows, for the rest of my journey in this world.

“I don’t see a future for Christianity if there are no Christians in the Holy Land.”

Bishop Ibrahim Azar, Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

The idea of Christianity not being part of the Holy Land story seemed ridiculous just a few years ago. Surely Christianity would remain strong and central to the Holy Land story in much the same way as it has endured for 2,000 years. What I discovered during this pilgrimage is the reality that a Christian presence in the Holy Land’s future landscape may actually not be true. The significant decline in the number of Christians living in the Holy Land in the past few decades is one small reason why I feel this way.

Without fail, every Christian we met along our pilgrimage journey said that something has changed in the Holy Land in the last 10-15 years. Today, persecution of Christians is common and widespread – desecration of cemeteries is celebrated on social and broadcast media, harassment and hate speech are a normal part of daily life, and being arrested for simply claiming to follow Jesus is as common today as it was in the earliest days of the Christian movement following Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I believe that the Holy Land is being afflicted today with things that do not reflect who the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian faith traditions have sought to be for centuries. Over and over again along our pilgrimage journey, we heard, “We are so grateful for you coming to see us in order to see how challenging life is for us. Because you are here, we know we have not been forgotten.” We were the first pilgrimage group to visit since October 7, 2023.

During this pilgrimage, I met beautiful children of God. Too many to remember all of the names. Children of God with beautiful stories. Children of God with beautiful lives. Children of God who are holy and beloved. Children of God who have experienced things I can’t imagine and will never be able to fully understand as a middle-aged white heterosexual man who is a citizen of the United States of America. One small example is that I have never worried about my physical safety or been spit on or arrested simply for proclaiming to be a follower of Jesus or a Palestinian Christian.

I believe there is a future in the Holy Land where Christians can live out their faith free from fear and persecution, but it will require work. It will require people of every faith tradition, or no faith tradition at all, to be able to listen to one another. To listen to each other in ways that humanity has never had to listen before.

During a meeting with our pilgrimage group, the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church, Theophilos II said, “I firmly believe the course of history is guided from above, not from us. But we have our work to do, to do our part.”

I believe more firmly than ever before that the Jewish people of the Holy Land are God’s beloved children and are being called to do their part to bring peace and unity to the Holy Land.

I believe that the Muslim people of the Holy Land are God’s beloved children and are being called to do their part to bring peace and unity to the Holy Land.

I believe that Christians of the Holy Land are God’s beloved children and are being called to do their part to bring peace and unity to the Holy Land. How might you and I as followers of Jesus in this corner of God’s good creation on the prairies of western North Dakota, be beacons of justice and peace to all people, especially to our friends who have called the Holy Land their home for centuries?

Author Rachel Held Evans, author of the books Inspired, Slaying Giant, Walking on Water, and Love the Bible Again wrote these words…“The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things, the church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with Jesus at the center.”

As Anglican Archbishop Hosam reminded us of the truth that Jesus is at the center of our work together as people of faith during our pilgrimage team’s visit to the Anglican church’s offices in Jerusalem, “Whether in times of peace or war,” he told our group, “the Christian church continues to stand and be a presence of the peace and love of Christ. We are a church of resilience and peace.”

May we embrace this truth in all that we say and do. We are a church, grounded in the peace and love of Christ in congregations across the Western North Dakota Synod, throughout the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and in every land that we call holy – especially in these days of war and persecution, in the place where the divine became human and lived among us – places that we know as Palestine and Israel, the Holy Land.

As we long for peace and unity in the Holy Land, I invite you to join me in prayer. This prayer is from the hymnal All Creation Sings…

Holy God, out of your great love for the world, your Word became flesh to live among us and to reconcile us to you and to one another. Rekindle among us the gift of your Spirit so that we seek to live in unity with all people, breaking down the walls that divide, ending the hostility among us, and proclaiming peace to those who are near and to those who are far away; through Christ Jesus, in whom we all have access in the one Spirit to you, both now and forever. Amen.