Jerusalem, Jerusalem

So often the Bible seems now to take on a fresh weight of significance in the context of the horrific troubles between the Palestinians and Israelis who share the ‘Holy Land’. On his way to the city of his death and resurrection, Jesus says;

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! 
How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood 
under her wings, and you were not willing.’

Oh that the different children of Jerusalem, Jews, Muslims and Christians, might all hear those words addressed to them.

Elsewhere in this newsletter you can read an article by the Dean of Salisbury about his 3 month stay in Jerusalem, through Lent and Easter last year. I heard him speak about this experience and found his account particularly powerful because he made clear that he would not offer personal views and opinions but simply tell of what he saw and heard.

One story concerned a doctor who works with cancer patients from a hospital in East Jerusalem. She told of the impossibility of getting cancer drugs into Gaza during the war; of how some patients found themselves stranded in East Jerusalem, unable to return home, while the grieving relatives of others, who died at the hospital, found themselves forcibly and frighteningly returned to Gaza, in a manner more associated with convicted criminals.

The Dean spoke of the impact this doctor had on him, not just because of her vivid account, but because of her warmth and commitment. In circumstances which might so easily cause you to hate, or to despair, she simply continued her work; her key aim being to get vital medicines into Gaza and to her patients.

I find that story both inspirational and a rebuke to us when situations in our world turn us towards rage or despair; and I believe we see that doctor’s approach modelled by Jesus himself. Repeatedly warned of his own danger and the threat from powerful people, he calmly asserts that he has work to do; ‘Today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way….’.  Like that doctor, he will not allow others to change how he lives out his calling.

So we, whose lives are so much safer, must not give in to hopeless fear or impotent fury at our world – there is work for us to do, service for us to give, and we too must stick steadfastly to His way.

Revd Kate McFarlane