From columnist Ray Hanania:
An American Arab Christian Christmas prayer
I’m blessed to grow up American Arab, enjoying a mix of origins of Christianity and a Bethlehem culture that celebrates Jesus despite the fog of politics and hatred that consumes many religions today
I am not sure that any Christian can appreciate momentous occasions like Christmas, or even any other major Christian holiday like Easter, the way a Palestinian Christian can.
My mother, Georgette, was born in Bethlehem.
Not the Bethlehem in Pennsylvania, or the Bethlehem in the disengaged teachings of the religion which relate the stories of Jesus Christ in a context that removes it from the land where he actually lived or from the people who became his disciples and followers today.
No.
My mother is from Bethlehem, the actual city where Jesus was born in a Manger to Joseph and Mary more than 2,000 years ago that today is a city that has been under a brutal Israeli government siege for more than 57 years.
When most American Christians think of Bethlehem, it’s just a word in a hymnal that is sung every week without any consideration for its context, only a melodious form of existential glue that connects them to their religion.
I picture Bethlehem in a very different way than most American Christians because my mother grew up and lived there. Her home was on Madbussa Street, a short walking distance from the Church of the Nativity which memorializes the spot where Jesus was born and held by his parents in a manger.
Every day from an early life, my mother walked to the Bethlehem well near the Church of the Nativity and filled a large clay jug of water that she would bring home to her father Saba, mother Regina, three sisters Laila, Janette and Lillian, and two brothers, Issa and Fawzi.
Unlike most Christians today, who have long forgotten the real Bethlehem and have become blind to its tragic reality, my mother, and my father who was born in Jerusalem, lived it and celebrated it in the most Christian of ways, identifying it not only for its past as a beginning of the story of Christ, but as the foundation of her Christian faith that saw its modern-day troubles as a very reflection of the sins that Jesus Christ tried to convalesce to spiritual health.
Jesus was a Jew, a Rabbi and a teacher.
He dedicated his life to repairing the waywardness of Judaism during his time, recognizing that the religion was about love and devotion to treating others the way you hoped they would treat you. His life was about showing compassion for those in need, not causing that need or ignoring humanity.
As a consequence of his teachings, Jesus was persecuted betrayed by his own people and crucified by the Roman Authorities. That came as a consequence of the demands of Caiaphas, the Jewish High Priest, and the Pharisees who interrogated and condemned Jesus. Did Jesus believe he was the Messiah, he was asked.
Jesus was a Jew, but he was also the founder of a new understanding of Judaism that was later called Christianity, spread by his handful of disciples who fled the persecution of the Pharisees and the Romans eastward through the ancient Syrian city of Antioch and spread his teachings, or what became known as the Gospel of Jesus the Rabbi who was born in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.
Unfortunately, today’s Christians embrace the story in a meaningless way, disconnecting it from their real life. Christmas, the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus, has been transformed into a commercialization of greed and profits.
Most Christians today celebrate the “discounts” of the new Retail Pharisees, and when they pray, they do it selfishly as a means of overcoming their shortcomings, failings or even suffering.
They sing the Hymnals of the Gospels as a means of celebrating the holidays, long ago losing the meaning of what their words.
Today, those verses are empty for most Christians, devoid of the power of faith that they were intended to fuel and a testament to the true meaning to celebrate and honor the life of Jesus.
They ignore the origins of Jesus’ life where suffering has become a daily existence in Bethlehem. They ignore the meaning of Jesus’ life.
It is ironic that politics has pitted the only two religious nations who believe in Jesus against each other, first during the Crusades and later during the rewriting of Palestine’s history. Other than Christians,
Muslims are the only other religion to honor Jesus, recognizing him as a “Prophet” and as a “Messenger” of God.
The religion of Jesus’ faith abandoned him and his teachings long ago, and have nurtured a hatred of everything his existence has meant to humanity.
The Life of Jesus is the antithesis of Sin, the sins of humankind.
Christianity has morphed through many attempts to hijack it, religious leaders and “evangelicals” who have turned Christianity into a profit-building venture of selfish worth.
Jesus of Bethlehem, and later Nazareth did not monetize the religious Gospels that he taught.
He gave them away.
His true Apostles shared the Gospels with others and today more than 2.4 billion people on the planet claim to be Christian, although most have long lost their Christian direction and traded it in for material pleasures and wealth.
When profit and greed hide behind the Gospel, selling it to the masses, it is the ultimate sin, a modern-day expression of the betrayal by Judas Iscariot. Judas, one of the 12 disciples with Jesus, betrayed him to the Pharisees and Romans who crucified Jesus, for 30 pieces of Gold.
You don’t have to believe in Jesus to be a good person.
But you have to believe in what he taught and what was handed down to what became his followers.
Jesus was loyal to the 10 Commandments given to Moses by God, and shared them to humanity.
His sermons were based on simple principles of humanity:
- Love: Jesus taught that people should love God and their neighbors and that they should forgive others and love their enemies.
- Repentance: Jesus believed that repentance of sins was essential. You answered your sins with remediation of the Soul.
- The Kingdom of God: Jesus believed that the Kingdom of God was near, and that it would be inherited by the poor and weak, not the rich and powerful.
- The Bible: Jesus believed that the original Scriptures of the Old Testament must be fulfilled, and his teachings laid the foundation to the New Testament.
- Deity: Jesus believed that he was the Son of God, and that to know, see, receive, believe, or honor him was to know, see, receive, believe, or honor God. You cannot see God by seeing through and past Jesus’ teachings and sermons.
- The Sermon on the Mount: Jesus taught a new standard of righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount, which expanded on the Ten Commandments.
- The Beatitudes: Jesus taught the Beatitudes, which are eight teachings that highlight the blessings that come from developing righteous traits.
- The authority of the government: Jesus taught that the government has a rightful zone of activity, but that it is not the authority behind all authorities.
My mother was a true Saint.
She believed in Jesus in his real meaning.
She was kind and considerate and sympathetic to anyone who suffered, regardless of their religious beliefs or non-beliefs, their national origins, or their skin color or facial features.
She would pray every day and as we sat around our Christmas dinner, she would remember those in our family who passed before us, and would recite the Lord’s Prayer, not as a religious fanatic but as a religious faithful.
My mother spoke Arabic, the language of the land of Jesus, Palestine.
And when she prayed, she used the word “Allah” which translated to English means “God.”
Today’s sinners, the Pharisees, are those who begin their hatred of Jesus and Christianity by focusing on the word, “Allah” hoping they can take today’s politics and blur its simplistic meaning.
If you are going to preach the story of Jesus, you should do it in a manner that is loyal to his Truth.
Wishing you a joyful Christmas filled with genuine peace as it was offered in the homilies of Jesus.
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