December 22, 2025
During this period of Advent we have been reflecting on ‘Finding God in the Everyday of Advent’. While we wait, we have deepened our anticipation of the coming of Jesus, through our practice of Gratitude, Adoration & Awe, Intercession & Compassion, and Contemplation & Presence.
Jesus was born to a poor family of low status and raised in Nazareth, an obscure village, in an oppressed society under the occupation of the Roman Empire. A time when power was imposed from above and experienced as injustice by most. Where a few thrived but many struggled to survive, and some lives were treated as less worthy – all were not deemed equal. A time when religion both challenged power, and was used to reinforce it, and when anyone standing up to the empire paid a high price.
In the light of Jesus’ birth, we recognise that seeking justice does not rely on simplistic narratives, but on God’s willingness to enter the complexity of human suffering and call us to faithful action.
Today, Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, is a Palestinian city in the Israeli occupied West Bank surrounded by a massive concrete wall, military checkpoints and illegal settlements. Its people live under Israeli military occupation where movement is limited, and economic opportunity is restricted. A system of control Jesus would have been very familiar with!
Since occupying the West Bank in 1967, Israel has misappropriated more than 2 million dunams (200,000 hectares) of land for its own purposes, including building and expanding settlements and paving roads for settlers. Some areas have been officially taken over by the state, others through daily acts of settler violence. These two seemingly unrelated tracks are both forms of state violence: the Israeli apartheid regime and its representatives actively aid and abet the settlers’ violence as part of a strategy to cement the takeover of Palestinian land’ ~ BT’SELEM The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.
Last month, Israeli settler groups began occupying lands in the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour just east of Bethlehem, illegally placing caravans on a hilltop known by locals as Ush al-Ghurab and announcing the establishment of a new settler outpost called Shdema.
The illegal settlement threatens the existence of the largest remaining Christian community in the West Bank, and the Shepherds’ Fields, located there, are remembered as the spot where the shepherds first saw the nativity star.
Christian solidarity is rooted in the belief that God became human in Jesus. John 1:14 “The word became flesh and dwelt among us”. God doesn’t save humanity from a distance, but enters human suffering, vulnerability, and history. Jesus lived in solidarity with the marginalised – the poor and hungry, the sick and excluded, women and children, foreigners and enemies, and those labelled ‘sinners’.
And our solidarity is grounded in hope, not driven by despair, because the resurrection proclaims that injustice does not have the final word, God sides with life against death, and that faithful love can transform history. We take courage to act even when the outcomes seem impossible.
So what action can we take?
1. Advocate for the UK Government to:
2. Support the free flow of aid into Gaza
3. End all arms sales to and military cooperation with Israel
4. Suspend the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement, and
5. Ban all trade and investment in companies profiting from the occupation
6. Uphold the findings of the International Court of Justice
7. Taking meaningful actions for peace in Palestine and Israel:
8. Continue to educate ourselves using the Churches Together in England resources
9. Boycott Israeli products and services and ensure our investments are ethical – BDS Amos Trust
10. Pray for a just and lasting peace
11. Donate to support the critical work of local partners
Part of our solidarity is the rejection of antisemitism, Islamophobia and other forms of racism and xenophobia. And our resistance to any expression of such prejudice and bias, whether in thought, word or deed.
As we reach the end of 2025, I want to thank you for your solidarity with those we serve, our local partners, and All We Can, and use the affirmation of faith from the Iona Abbey Worship Book:
‘We believe that God is present in the darkness before dawn: in the waiting and uncertainty where fear and courage join hands, conflict and caring link arms, and the sun rises over barbed wire.
We believe in a with-us God who sits down in our midst to share our humanity. We affirm our faith that takes us beyond the safe place: into action, into vulnerability and into the streets. We commit ourselves to work for change and put ourselves on the line; to bear responsibility, take risks, live powerfully and face humiliation; to stand with those on the edge; to choose life and be used by the Spirit for God’s new community of hope. Amen’
Wishing you every blessing this Christmas and into the New Year!
