Tag Pray for the peace of Jerusalem

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem this Remembrance Season

Stephen Thorp Leave a comment

It has been heartbreaking listening to the BBC news stories coming out of Israel in recent days. Stories like that of twenty-two year old Neta Portal telling the news reporter how, despite being shot in the leg six times, she had survived with her boyfriend the terrible massacre carried out by Hamas on the Israeli kibbutz at Kfar Aza – or seeing Mariam, a young British Palestinian girl, expressing her fears of dying as she clutches her British passport in the hope that the Rafah gate might be opened, granting her safe passage into Egypt. These stories remind us that in times of conflict it is always the innocent who suffer.

Let’s be clear, what Hamas did was barbaric and Israel has every right to defend itself – and yet we pray and hope that they will have a higher regard for civilians than the terrorists. The Israeli / Palestinian conflict is complicated, but the truth is that ever since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel has made a number of concessions, offers and overtures to its Palestinian neighbours which would create a Palestinian state (even voluntarily giving up its worship upon the Temple Mount) all of which have ultimately been rejected by the Palestinian leadership, leading to the current unsatisfactory situation. And yet relations in the wider Middle East have been improving and things were looking better than they had been for years – all of which has now been blown away by the recent attack by Hamas, sponsored by Iran.

The irony is that the word ‘Jerusalem’ means ‘foundation of peace’ incorporating the Arab word for peace ‘salam’ as in ‘As-salamu alaykum’ meaning ‘peace be upon you’  and this is akin to the Hebrew word ‘shalom’ also meaning ‘peace’, ‘tranquillity’ and ‘wholeness’, but it’s not just a simple sort of peace but a deeply rich sort of peace that belongs to God himself. So, in a city and a part of the world which has such a high regard for peace, it’s incredibly sad that there is so much anger, hostility and hatred.

The Christian will be aware that the prophet Isaiah predicted a time when ‘every warrior’s boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood would be destined for burning and used as fuel for the fire’ (Isaiah 9.5) because ultimately God’s messiah would arrive and put things right, and he would be called ‘Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace (‘sar shalom’)’ (Isaiah 9.6), and that person is of course Jesus who, after his death and resurrection, met his frightened disciples in a locked room and said ‘peace be with you’ (John 20.19).

So as we approach Remembrance Sunday, let us be grateful for the peace that we currently enjoy, made possible by those who sacrificed so much to look after and protect us in past years, but may we also be wise enough to pray for Jerusalem and the peace of the world, trusting that God’s wisdom, and the loving, peaceful spirit of Christ, might touch all our hearts.

 

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! 8 For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” Psalm 122.6 (ESV)

Dare we Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem?

Stephen Thorp Leave a comment

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem … may there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels”  (Psalm 122.6-7). Yet it is with great sadness that we see anything but peace and security in Jerusalem at the present time as conflict increases – at the time of writing it is believed that 213 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza with 12 on the Israeli side. As Hamas fires more rockets into Israel, and as Israel prepares another night of ‘intensive’ strikes against Hamas’s network of underground tunnels, President Biden joins calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants – and yet this seems like a forlorn hope as most commentators know that Israel will always defend itself whenever it is attacked, whereas Hamas sees the Israelis as an oppressive occupying force and has threatened to continue firing rockets into Israel for months. But assuming peace was possible – what should it look like, and what should we pray for?

For many years, successive American administrations have favoured a two state solution, but this vision has been constantly hampered by the frequent building of Israeli settlements in disputed sectors, and more recently by President Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, implicitly recognising Jerusalem to be ‘Israel’s undivided capital’. This has upset Palestinians who want East Jerusalem to be their capital of any future state. This was the backdrop to the current crisis which was sparked off when Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque to quell Palestinian rioters who were using the sacred site to store rocks and fireworks to throw at Israeli officers.    

This rapid escalation of violence has confirmed for many the view that a two state solution is now impossible, and yet the ‘winner takes all’ mentality of both Muslim and Jew will only lead to even more violence, pain and suffering – so, how should we pray?   

Well, perhaps Christians have something to offer here! Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all Abrahamic faiths, believing that God gave the land to Abraham and his descendants, but if you only look at the land purely through the eyes of the ‘Old Testament’, you might understandably perceive this ‘giving’ to be a ‘right’ (and therefore something to be fought over), but the Christian doesn’t just see this story through an ‘Old Testament’ lens but a ‘New Testament’ one as well. Viewed through this lens, the Christian understands that the giving of the land was not a right nor an end in itself ‘lasting forever’, but a ‘temporary’ gift through which the love of God would ultimately be revealed, as it was – in Jesus! For ‘in Christ’, God’s love for the world was not only revealed to Jews, but also to every nation and tribe in the world. It is therefore no coincidence that Jesus’ statement ‘blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’ is immediately followed by ‘blessed are the peacemakers’. So incredible as it may sound, and as difficult as it may be, perhaps we should not be working towards a two state solution, but praying for a one state solution, where all those who hunger and thirst for righteousness can also learn to live, love and respect one another. Surely it is only in this way that we can truly pray for the peace of Jerusalem.   

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. Psalm 24.1