Earlier today, I was interviewed on Zoom by one of BPC’s bright college students, Tally Coulter. She was doing some research for a class at Duke University on what faith-leaders know about militant Islam. I know. . . it seems like an odd subject, and Tally admitted as much. At the end of our conversation, as I was talking with Tally, it suddenly dawned on me that for my entire ministry – starting in September of 2001, when I was three weeks into my first church job – not a week has gone by without some news of something tragic happening in the life of the world stemming from the actions of a few extremists 23 years ago. As I told Tally, it’s always simmering in the back of our awareness and has been for my whole ministry. . . and for her whole life. And it’s all so much. . . so much death and destruction and resentment and misunderstanding. Can we even begin to hope in the face of such hopelessness, that one day it will all come to an end?
The most recent thing to happen in the region was the fall of the brutal government of Syria. There is a whole lot of confusion in Syria right now, and I don’t know what the next weeks, months, and years hold for that troubled land, but it does give me some small amount of hope.
I can remember visiting the border between Israel and Syria a little over ten years ago. Our tour bus was in the far northern reaches of Israel, and we stopped at a “scenic overlook” – looking across rows and rows of grapevines at a razor-wire fence and a UN Peacekeeping encampment. There were signs warning all of us of the dangers of hidden landmines. On the hill behind us was an Israeli listening station that could intercept phone communication all the way in Damascus, Syria, some 40 miles away. The whole thing reminded me of going to the DMZ in Korea when I was 15 years old – two countries divided by razor wire, ready to unleash violence at a moment’s notice.
I know. . . I know. . . this seems like an odd topic for this week’s newsletter article, but I did hear some very interesting – and good news this week. A young man named Travis Timmerman, who, in examining his Christian faith, had sought to travel through Syria earlier this year on a pilgrimage, was found wandering barefoot outside Damascus. Now, I don’t know Travis and don’t know the full details of his pilgrimage, but he had been detained by Syrian authorities and put in prison for months. His family in Missouri had no idea where he was. And, on Thursday of this week, they found that he was alive (news article link HERE).
Travis’ mother said this good news was a “Christmas miracle.” It definitely seems miraculous. Somehow, in the midst of all of the great struggles, violence, and confusion of the region, there was this barefoot guy, somehow okay in the midst of it all.
In this season of Advent – in our pilgrimage through the season of hope and expectation, the season in which we long for the miracle of the Prince of Peace arriving in our midst and setting the world aright – it is my hope that we not give up hope.
Do not give up hope. . . In Jesus’ day, the world was full of just as much complexity and danger and beauty as our own, and yet Jesus came anyway. . . This is something that gives me hope. . .
See you in church!
Grace and Peace,
John
This Week
Prepare for Worship: “Voices of Christmas”
- Join us on Saturday, December 14, at 4 PM for a Matinee Performance of this year’s Christmas Pageant.
- Join us on Sunday, December 15, at 10 AM for a performance of this year’s Christmas Pageant.