GOD-WITH-US IN THE DARKNESS
Upon contemplating this feast day, my first thought is of the more than 8,000 children in Palestine whose lives have been cut short by Israeli military violence since October 7th. A recent demonstration in the Netherlands placed 8,000 pairs of children’s shoes in a town square in Rotterdam in remembrance of the Palestinian children. Visually, the shoes are eerily reminiscent of the 8,000 pairs of children’s shoes preserved at the Auschwitz museum and those in many other Holocaust memorials. The actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seem quite akin to those of King Herod in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew.
I also call to mind the grief of the Israeli people whose loved ones died on October 7th and the global grief and fear Jewish people are holding around the world, especially as I read reports of sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women that day, the trauma of the Israeli hostages, and the rise of antisemitism globally. As a person of patrilineal Ashkenazi Jewish descent, who lost relatives in the Holocaust, I share a kindred pain and generational trauma with Jewish people. As a Catholic, my heart is broken by the devastation of the Palestinian Christian community, especially as Israeli forces attacked Bethlehem on Christmas Day. My heart and mind have felt like a ping pong ball as I hear news of violence on both sides and seek to understand more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and history.
The number of perspectives on this issue can be incredibly overwhelming and it is hard to hold patience and space for all of them when we are exposed to an unprecedented number of graphic images and reports of violence on a daily basis. Feelings of urgency and powerlessness rise in me simultaneously. It feels tempting to want to pick a side, to look at things through a black and white lens. While I try to develop my own opinions about the history and the current conflict, one thing is objectively clear: many people are fearful, angry, traumatized, and grief-stricken at the injustice of innocent lives taken by violence, and many may feel overtaken by darkness.
In today’s first reading in 1 John, Chapter 1 the author writes: “If we say, ‘We have fellowship with [God],’ while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.” Initially this statement seems harsh. Can’t we be in fellowship with God while we walk in darkness? In contrast, today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, references the book of Jeremiah, in which the prophet observes, “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.” Was Rachel not in fellowship with God as she wept and was inconsolable? Wasn’t God in fellowship with her? Isn’t God in fellowship with all those parents, Palestinian and Israeli, who are mourning the loss of their children? I consider the mix of joy and sorrow Mary held in her heart upon presenting her infant son in the temple, and being told what he would one day have to endure, and in knowing that while her son survived, tens of thousands of babies in Bethlehem were killed.
Perhaps in 1 John 1, the writer is inviting us to hold on to the light of God, even in the darkness, rather than to suggest that if we experience darkness at all we cannot say we are in fellowship with God. The Scriptures don’t tell us to just “buck up and carry on,” rather, they seek to offer hope through the promise of God’s solidarity with those who mourn, those who suffer, and those who are oppressed. Surely darkness and fellowship with God can occupy the same space.
May we find hope in the strength illustrated in the story of the Prince of Peace and his mother, two Palestinian Jews who were signs of contradiction and resistance to those in power, and who walked the path of nonviolence.
How can we be in fellowship and solidarity to those who walk in darkness? If we have avoided learning about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict altogether, how might we step out of our own comfort zone and better love those most directly affected by taking steps to educate ourselves? How might we invite God into our personal and collective sorrow and joy during this season in which we remember the Incarnation of God-with-us?
Jessica Gerhardt