Anglican Communion News Service

Good Friday 2002

The Liturgy at St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem has just ended. I listened to the lessons as they were read and tried to picture myself in the places and with the people that were mentioned. At one level it was a wonderful feeling to be so familiar with the places, but another feeling quickly dominated as I thought about the people. Those disciples surely felt the same kind of despair that I feel today. They had put their hope in Jesus and risked their lives that they were right. That is not an unusual observation to hear, but it has a completely different power in the context of today's events.

Three weeks of demolition and carnage in West Bank towns by Israel. I attach a photo from Bethlehem to show you what it was like. (This is the main road through Bethlehem, but south of the city centre. It was taken an hour or two after most troops withdrew and left only snipers on rooftops.) Then there were two or three suicide bombers culminating with twenty-one deaths in Netanya. My own hopes had been put in a combination of the Saudi Peace Initiative and General Zinni's presence, hopes that the United States was applying more pressure than the public would know. Yesterday the Arab Summit passed the Peace Initiative even as Israel began a fresh occupation of West Bank towns. The hotels around us are now at capacity with expatriates who have been evacuated from Ramallah. Tanks have surrounded Arafat's compound and breached its walls. Arafat is going to be "isolated". Most of us here are helplessly waiting on the massacre to begin. That is Israel's answer to the Peace Initiative: retaliation is more important. Zinni has failed. The United States has failed. Reason has failed. What hope is there? Will the blood of another two or three hundred Palestinians atone for the twenty-one Israelis? Did the twenty-one Israelis atone for the hundreds of Palestinians in the previous three weeks? Will the certain suicide bombers after this military offensive solve anything?

There is no hope. Our hope has been crucified. When reason and international pressure fail, there is nothing left. Perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction for hope. Certainly I do not want to look to either Arafat or Sharon, and apparently I cannot look to the United States either. Surely I can look to God, but God has to work through people. Has God forsaken us all? Is there some way somewhere that all this can be redeemed? We are surrounded by death, and not simply by bodies. Is God able to bring new life? Will there be Easter this year?

Dean Ross Jones
St George's College Jerusalem