“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” Matthew 2:18
I cannot light my Advent candles this year without thinking of the darkness in Gaza. Every Sunday we add one more candle for hope, peace, joy, love, and I keep asking myself what these words even mean to the Christian families who mark Advent while standing inside the ruins of their homes.
They call it a ceasefire now. Since the October ceasefire the bombs have slowed, but more than three hundred people have still been killed, including over one hundred children, in Gaza alone. And in the West Bank there are more Israeli settler terror attacks, more checkpoints, more fear. My friends, this is not peace. It is only a slower violence, and our silence makes us part of it.
The God Who Chose Occupation
This Advent I keep returning to the Nativity story, but it feels different this year. I used to picture it as a quiet, joyful and holy scene. Mary and Joseph. The baby Jesus. Shepherds and angels standing in gentle light. But that is not the real story.
Jesus was born under military occupation. His parents travelled for a census demanded by foreign rulers who did not care about their suffering. He was born in a stable because there was no space for them, no dignity, no welcome. And not long after His birth, Herod tried to kill Him. The Holy Family fled to Egypt as refugees.
God entered our world not in comfort but in danger. Not in wealth but in poverty. Not among the powerful but among people crushed by empire.
This is the Christ we worship. This is the Christ we celebrate at Christmas.
And today His children in Gaza are living the same story.
Gaza Still Weeps
About six hundred Christians remain in Gaza, perhaps fewer now. For two years many of them sheltered in Holy Family Church and Saint Porphyrius Church. They slept on cold concrete floors, listened to bombs fall around them, and wondered if they would live until morning.
Eighteen Christians were killed when Saint Porphyrius was struck. Three more were killed at Holy Family Church. Dozens were wounded. In total more than fifty Christians died, whether by bombs, snipers, or the lack of medical care. A church, a place meant to offer sanctuary, became a tomb.
Now, during the ceasefire, Christians are returning to discover that most of their homes are destroyed or badly damaged. Nearly eighty percent of all buildings in Gaza are gone. Where does a family celebrate Christmas when their house is rubble. How can they sing O Come O Come Emmanuel while Christians around the world sing the same hymn inside warm churches without remembering the people of the land where Christ was born.
And while the bombs slow in Gaza, the West Bank bleeds in silence. More restrictions. More settlers’ terror. More fear.
What the Incarnation Demands
Every Advent we celebrate that the Word became flesh and lived among us. But what does this mean if we do not stand with the flesh and blood brothers and sisters of Christ who suffer today.
Jesus said that whatever we refuse to do for the least of these we refuse to do for Him. Not symbolically. Not spiritually. In truth. When we ignore the Christians of Gaza we turn away from Christ Himself.
I admit this makes me uneasy. I want faith to be easier. I want to light my candles and feel peaceful without carrying the weight of someone else’s pain. But this is not the faith Jesus gave us. He gave us a cross. He gave us sacrifice. He gave us a love that asks something from us.
The Christians of Gaza, the descendants of the earliest believers who kept the faith alive in the Holy Land for two thousand years, are being pushed out. Almost half have been killed or have fled since this genocidal war began. Not because they wished to leave the land of Christ, but because they had no choice.
And where is the Church. Where are we.
An Advent Call to Awaken
I write this not only to stir guilt, although maybe there is room for that, but to wake us up. Advent is about waking up. Jesus told us to stay awake and be ready.
We wait for His coming, but He is already here in Gaza, in the faces of suffering Christians, in the children with no homes, in the families trying to decide whether to stay or flee.
So this Advent I am asking myself hard questions.
What have I sacrificed for the Christians of Gaza.
What risks have I taken to speak for them.
How is my faith different from the people who ignored Jesus when He was hungry or in need.
I do not like my answers. They expose me.
Hope in the Darkness
And yet here is what humbles me. The Christians of Gaza have not lost hope. They still pray. They still worship. They speak of the resurrection while surrounded by death. Their faith is stronger than my comfortable Christianity.
They understand something I am still learning. Advent hope is not pretending things are fine. It is crying out How long O Lord while believing that light will still overcome darkness. It is weeping while trusting that God sees and hears and acts.
This is the hope we are called to live. Not a cheap hope that looks away. A costly hope that stands inside suffering, beside the oppressed, working for justice even when the path is slow.
Light a Candle Then Become One
So what do we do. This Advent, as we light our candles, let them carry meaning.
Hope. Pray daily for Gaza, especially for its Christians. Not quick prayers, but intercession that costs us something.
Peace. Contact your representatives and demand that aid reaches Gaza freely. Demand accountability. Demand real peace rooted in justice. Demand an end of occupation.
Joy. Give to the organizations helping people of Gaza, including local churches in Jerusalem. Let your joy be expressed through generosity.
Love. Do not turn away. Keep Gaza in your heart and in your conversations. When the world forgets, you remember. That is what love does.
A Christmas Prayer
Emmanuel, God with us.
You who were born under occupation and became a refugee, be with Your children in Gaza this Christmas.
Forgive us for our quietness and our comfort and our fear.
Break our hearts with what breaks Yours.
Give us courage to speak and generosity to give.
Protect Your people in Gaza. Strengthen them. Provide for them.
Use us, even in our weakness, to be Your hands and feet.
Come quickly Lord Jesus. Come to Gaza. Come to us.
Make all things new.
Amen.
This Advent the world has given the Christians of Gaza despair. This Christmas let us offer them hope not only with our prayers, but with our voices, our resources, and our willingness to follow Jesus wherever He leads, even into the rubble.
Because that is where He is. That is where He has always been.
Will you go there with Him.
