January 5, 2025.

Dear Friends,

We will gather together remotely for our Badaliya and Peace Islands Institute faith sharing on Sunday, January 5. 2025 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. Please join us on Zoom, or in spirit, as we encourage Inter-faith relations and pray together for peace and reconciliation in the Middle East, especially in Israel and Palestine and Lebanon; for an end to the violence in the West Bank, a ceasefire of the war in Gaza and an end to war as a solution to the many conflicts in our world, especially in the Ukraine, Haiti and the Sudan. Our prayers are on-going for all the victims of human-created violence as well as the increase of natural disasters due to climate change, all over the world and for the many humanitarian groups risking their own lives to offer much-needed aid.

We watch with a mixture of hope and anxiety as the 50 years of the Assad regime in Syria has been overthrown and pray that the many leaders of various rebel groups in areas of this important Middle Eastern country will work together to form a new and more humane government for the Syrian people. We hope with the millions of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and other countries that they can return home and rebuild this ancient historic and vital country in the region despite the interference of the US and Israel's intentions to expand their own colonial interests.

Even in the midst of destruction and war, Middle Eastern Christians share with us the two special feast days that mark the end of the journey that Christian believers have entered into during the month of December that we call the Christmas Season; Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord by John the Baptist. The famous Christmas Tree traditionally lit in Manger Square in Bethlehem was once again cancelled, the image of the child in the churches in Bethlehem and in Rome covered in a kefiyah and for the second year placed in the rubble. With them we have immersed ourselves in the rich traditonal Gospel stories of a miraculous appearance of an angel, who we call Gabriel, to a young adolescent girl from a backwater village called Nazareth saying, "Be not afraid" and announcing that she was chosen by the Divine Lover of Humanity to be overshadowed by the Spirit, and give birth to a son. She was to name him Jesus, Yeshua, meaning the "one who saves." To affirm her doubts, since she is only betrothed, or promised in marriage to a man named Joseph, the messenger tells her that her cousin, Elizabeth is 6 months pregnant in her old age. "Because nothing is impossible for God". That story sets the stage for this journey that has led us from the meeting of Mary and Elizabeth, who will give birth to the prophet John the Baptist, to Joseph's dream that allowed him to accept the young Mary into his home, to a trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem where this child was born in the only place available, the space for the animals below the living quarters in a house, a manger, with a feeding trough for a crib.

The celebration of this perpetual cycle of new birth and new life, of Divine Love coming again into our world through the birth of a little child is highlighted in today's celebration of Epiphany; the recognition of the divinity of this child by three visitors, star-gazers, that we might call astronomers, from the East. This Gospel account according to Matthew was written many years after the life, death and resurrection of this child-become-Christ took place. These visitors bring incense, gold, and myrrh presaging the rest of this miraculous story that will end in seeming failure and tragedy, except that "Nothing is impossible for God".

The first reading for our liturgy today comes from the Hebrew prophet, Isaiah written eight hundred years before the birth of Christ. it is the prophetic voice of hope that suggests that these iconic figures of three wise men, kings or simply searchers and dreamers of evidence of a better world, represent the hope of all nations to witness the peace with justice promised to light up the streets of our iconic city of peace, Jerusalem.

"Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds over the peoples; but, upon you the Lord shines, and over you appears his glory .... raise your eyes and look about .... Then you shall be radiant at what you see, your heart shall throb and overflow." (Isaiah 60:1-6)

The prophetic voice of all times and places keeps reminding us that the darkness that covers the earth and the thick clouds that can overwhelm us with heartbreak and grief will not ever take away the compassion, empathy, and mercy of the Divine Creator 's love for Humanity. That Word become flesh that continues to dwell among and within us as we enter the ever-deepening cycles of this story of transformation of hearts and minds is the sign of hope that gives us the strength and courage to confront the powers of violence, war, and destruction that plague our world. That is the meaning of Epiphany.

We are reminded of another story of Epiphany that is found in the Qur'an. In Islam the word, epiphany, is a revealing of Divine truth that comes into the universe and into human hearts and is beautifully demonstrated in the story of the birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus found in Surah Maryam, Qur'an 19. Each of the verses revealed to the Prophet Muhammad can be experienced as an epiphany, a recognition, a revelation of the Word of God made manifest. The Qur'an begins with the spouse of Elizabeth, the priest/prophet Zachariah who begs his Lord to give him an heir even though he is elderly and his wife is barren. The Lord hears his prayer and he is told his son will be called Yahya, John. The sign that this is true is that he will lose his ability to speak and we hear that Yahya was given Wisdom from his birth.

Then the Prophet is told to relate in the Book the story of Maryam who withdraws from her family to a place in the East where she is visited by an angel of the Lord, a "messenger" we are told. The son she will bear despite her chastity is called a "holy son". And the image of palm trees and desert give us a deserted context for Maryam's grief, thirst, and hunger as she is fed by the Divine Lover during her birthing of Jesus. She is chastised when she brings her child to the people. In answer she points to her babe and thus he responds: "I am indeed a servant of Allah. He has given me revelation and made me a prophet. And He has made me blessed wherever I may be and has enjoined upon me Prayer and Charity as long as I live ... So Peace be on me the day I was born, the day that I die and the day that I shall be raised to life again." (Surah 19: 30-33)

Perhaps what we are meant to take away from these stories of miraculous births and babe's speaking from the cradle is a larger perspective on the tragic events of our time; that nothing is Impossible for the Divine Lover of humanity. That the Word of Divine Love has no time limit. That what is demanded of us is the openness, receptivity and wonder of youth visible in the young Mary in order to be able to receive the unconditional Love offered to us by that Divine Lover. This, in order to offer it in turn to one another; to see our own humanity in all others. Perhaps the promise of the scriptures and the Qur'an is for a world upended by Peace with Justice in the East, where we are called with Maryam to retreat so that we can give birth to that Word of Love too.

Blessed New Year and Peace to you and yours,
Dorothy

The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an. translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali. Asir Media, Istanbul Türkiye, 2002.
Asir Media at Islamic Bookstore.com

See www.dcbuck.com for all past letters to the Badaliya and Peace Islands