E-mails of the celebration from the Holy Land

In a recent letter received from a colleague, he writes that he finds it difficult to imagine how I and my people can live with such a situation. I guess he means - where humiliation, hopelessness, helpless-ness and impotency of world leaders to stop this madness, separation walls, destruction of homes and death at every corner in our lives, etc. He asks how do you manage to stay sane?

In my reply, I reminded him that we are the community of the resurrection, of the risen Lord who overcame death by dying and blessed us with life. Did He not say: "I came that you may have life and have it abundantly." I went on to say what I have always believed, that death will not have the last word. Life will: Life with dignity, life with freedom, life with harmony, life with integrity, life with peace - just and truthful. Such a life will not only have the last word, it will be a life that is worth living. TOP

Thus, we continue to testify and continue to celebrate, knowing that Christ, our Paschal Lamb, has been sacrificed for us, therefore, we can keep the feast, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness, the leaven of war and hostility - but with the unleavened bread of sincerity, truth, righteous-ness, love, and life at its best.

On we go. He walks with us. He walks with you. He will accompany us, until we arrive at our Emaus and will open our eyes to see Him risen at the breaking of bread. We travel the land, we cross checkpoints, and border stations, we climb up walls, we weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice, sharing hope and bringing life to those who are dying to live. (As we say in Arabic mayteen tan 3eesh)

Sisters and brothers in Christ,

There is much that I wish to share with you, not only about the events of that great and wonderful dawn: how God rolled the stone; how he met with Mary; what the angel said; how the news spread out and how the Resurrection became the corner stone of our faith. I also have much to share about what is happening in His Land and over there in the Home Land of Abraham, in Iraq. However, I am challenged to quote Paul when he said:

"It was not with any show of oratory or philosophy" but simply to tell you had Christ not been raised from the dead, there would have been no Easter to celebrate. And those of us in our different churches would not be here, or there, to join hands and voices in singing the Easter Halleluiah. TOP

Christ is Risen!
Experiencing Easter in
Jerusalem

Three incredible days passed in Jerusalem. On Friday night, burial pro-cessions carried out the shroud of the Lord from the small ancient church
of St James into the parvis of the Holy Sepulchre.

Yesterday, tens of thou-sands of native Christians and pilgrims flocked into the great edifice of the Holy Sepulchre to celebrate the annual but always new and surprising miracle of Holy Fire coming of the Tomb of Christ. It is a beautiful and colourful feast, when processions of various denominations march in and out, while young Syrian and Armenian boys throw wild and inspiring dances full of
manly power. After hours of chants and prayers, Holy Fire burst out of the empty Tomb to encourage us at this most frightening Saturday of the year,
the Saturday when the Lord was dead. During this godless Saturday Christ
fought the gates of Hell, and its outcome was far from obvious. The Holy Fire was a sign of life from the Tomb. And with sunrise on Easter Sunday came a beautiful day, a day of new hope and new promise.

This year, the Old City of Jerusalem was full of CDs and videos of the great
modern Passion Play by Mel Gibson. It was also screened in semi-privacy of hotels and clubs, for no cinema in Jewish-controlled Palestine wished to show it. There was no clear reason as reason goes. The Passion of Gibson is quite similar to his Braveheart; both films contain long and heart-tearing scenes of torture, flogging and agony. But no Englishman objected to the
Braveheart being screened claiming it will inspire anti-English sentiment.

The Passion reminds in a way even The First Blood, but no policeman tried to
block Rambo saying it inflames hatred to cops. If the Jews were an ethnic group, they would be able to watch the Passion as easily as the English watch the Braveheart. Indeed, our friend Gilad Atzmon was right: Jews are not killers of Christ, but those who identify with killers of Christ.

For Palestinians, this story of a kind Palestinian man tortured and killed by the brutal look-a-likes of Israel's Border Police at the shouts of 'Yiztalev', 'Crucify Him', is a story of their daily life brought to the level of Faith. And they can find respite and hope in its message of
Resurrection. For the immigrant 'Jewish' pop-ulation of Palestine, there is a plain message: identify with Christ, not with his killers.  --Israel Shamir, Jaffa