I was about to enter my house when a neighbor stopped me and pointed to my Christmas tree, visible through the window. He said, “Your Christmas tree is offensive to me and my family.” His tone suggested that I should take it down. I was taken aback by his comment and did not know what to answer. It was the first time I had ever heard such a thing. Since when was my Christmas tree offensive? And on what grounds can he tell me what I can and cannot put in my own house or how I should observe my religious tradition?
This was the conversation between myself, a Palestinian Christian living in the city of Jerusalem, and my Orthodox Jewish neighbor. The point here is not to suggest that all Israeli Jews are hostile to Christianity or decorated trees, for at the same Christmas season I was asked by teachers to introduce the Christmas holiday in a Jewish Israeli school my sons attended. Nevertheless, as a minority living in Palestine (Israel), these are often the encounters I have with the other two majority groups, Palestinian Muslims and Israeli Jews.
These types of encounters encourage me to rethink what the Christmas holiday means to me as a Palestinian Christian living in the Holy Land, and how my neighbors understand it, as well. For we Christians in the Middle East, Christmas was always shadowed by Easter. Even in Arabic, we call Easter the “big holiday” and Christmas the “little holiday” (عيد الكبير وعيد الصغير). Likewise, theologically speaking, Easter always made more sense to us and was a reason for rejoicing. The crucifixion, burial, and resurrection always were central to our Palestinian Christian identity, especially as I grew up in the Greek Orthodox Church building that my forefathers built.
I remember as a little boy receiving a package full of Christmas decorations from relatives that had immigrated to the United Kingdom. This was something completely new for us in the old Palestinian city of Lydda, for we had never decorated our home for such an occasion. The decorations were such a new element in our Christmas celebration that friends and family came from all around the city to see what we had put up in our home. This was only the beginning of the strong western influence on how we celebrate Christmas in the land Christ grew up in.
As Christmas became such a huge phenomenon in the West and in popular culture, Jews and Muslims would always come to me asking questions about what this holiday meant and how I celebrated it. Often, my Muslim neighbours would even wear Christmas hats and come to see the celebrations in Nazareth and Bethlehem. As Jesus is also a prophet in Islam, some more secularly orientated Muslims would also join in the celebrations.
All of this attention from my Jewish and Muslim neighbors, both positive and negative, forced me to explore and study the Christmas story more closely. To my surprise, the Christmas message was far more powerful and relevant to the situation in Palestine than I thought. It took me time to realise its significance and wonder. While the Christmas story preached by popular and western culture was one of comfort, simplicity, and kindness, the Christmas story I discovered was unspooled in a context of discomfort, complexity, and oppression. It took place in a context that I could identify with a lot more as a Palestinian Christian who faces numerous challenges, and as a minority who is discriminated against.
The people of Israel in the Second Temple period were under occupation, oppression, and in despair. The Roman Empire dictated every aspect of life and enforced its will by the sword. The emperor Augustus was considered a god and required worship from Roman citizens. In addition, the local Jewish leadership at the Temple were fixated on maintaining the position and influence they had through negotiation with King Herod and the Romans. By doing so, they missed what God was doing through history, as they were expecting the Messiah to overthrow the Romans with military force. People today are also obsessed and drawn to political power, which demands a certain amount of loyalty.
It is in this story of political, religious, and social unrest that God decided to reveal himself. Moreover, he revealed himself not in the palaces or the Temple of Jerusalem, but in a small household in Bethlehem. And those who attended his birth were not the elite or powerful, but the marginalized, oppressed, and different. They included a young woman, who was considered by some to be unfaithful; her husband, who was a carpenter; shepherds who were at the bottom of the socio-economic classes; and foreigners from afar—an unexpected and unusual company to welcome the King of Kings who was to liberate them.
This other Christmas story could not be more relevant to my Palestinian context! By following Christ and embracing the Christmas story, you automatically place yourself with the outcasts of political and social powers. I could not believe I had never heard anyone preach or teach about these aspects of the Christmas story. Even many Christians would only emphasize the birth of Christ and completely ignore its contextual message. Christmas is a story of liberation from oppression, both spiritual and physical, for whatever those two binaries mean. It is a story that gives hope to those who are ignored, live under occupation, and are marginalized. As Palestinian Christians this resonates very well, especially as our community encounters injustices on a daily basis and is shrinking more and more.
Indeed, the Christmas holiday is appealing to many of my Jewish and Muslim neighbors, as well as Christians. But the contextual and theological story of Christmas is full of challenging messages to how we live our lives in Palestine and around the world. Are we going to continue celebrating the holiday in a superficial manner? Or are we going to allow the hopeful message of Christ to reach the most oppressed, marginalised, and voiceless people in our respective contexts? For when we embrace this Christmas message of hope and liberation for these communities, we join the Kingdom of God, which opposes every wicked authority and leadership. There is a danger in our time to miss the work of God in history and maintain our gaze on political and religious individuals and trends like many people did during the time of the Christmas story. As the Kingdom of God works like yeast and a mustard seed, its impact and effect are not seen immediately. And this message is far more threatening to political, religious, and social powers than any Christmas tree you will see.
Salim J. Munayer PhD, is the founder and director of Musalaha (reconciliation in Arabic), a faith based organization that promotes reconciliation among Palestinians and Israelis across ethnic, national, and religious boundaries. Dr. Munayer and Musalaha have developed a reconciliation curriculum around six different stages of reconciliation. In the past, Dr. Munayer served as academic dean at the Bethlehem Bible College and is currently an adjunct professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He has also published a number of books and articles on theology, reconciliation, and Palestine/Israel (his latest book being Journey Through the Storm: Lessons from Musalaha- Ministry of Reconciliation).