|
[Transcript of video]
Hi, my name is Karl. I’m bringing you the Advent reflection from the MCC Council of Elders for Advent 3, which is about Joy.
And I need to really start with a confession about my joy. With global world news being what it is right now, I lost my sense of joy. And one thing that I did to try and get that back, to stop the doom-scrolling and looking at death counts, was to get this book: Yet in the Dark Streets Shining, by Mercy Aiken, a Jewish woman who visited Palestine and got to know an Arabic Christian pastor named Bishara Awad.
Mercy took Pastor Bishara through a military checkpoint, as he travels each week to preach in Jerusalem. And at that checkpoint, he was turned away, and he was forced to walk for miles, and it was in January, it was in the snow. It was because of an error in his permit, because an elderly man who is a Christian minister, should be allowed to drive through the checkpoint.
And what Pastor Bishara did was to take that moment and tell some friendly jokes to the to the military officers that were guarding the checkpoint. And then as he walked away from the checkpoint, he said to Mercy triumphantly, with joy, “I didn’t lose my peace”, “Not for one moment did I lose my peace when I was walking through that checkpoint”.
And mercy reflects on the way that Pastor Bishara guards his joy by treating everything with a sense of humour. He’s always looking for jokes to make about one thing or another, and because of that he is able to maintain his sense of peace as he goes through life, even living the extremely difficult life of an Arabic man going through military checkpoints every week, just to preach in Jerusalem. So that for me is something that has restored around my perspective at this moment in world, history.
God, I pray for each and every person who listens to this video and I pray for all of those who like me are struggling with Global News at the moment and want to have a sense of joy in our lives. I pray, God, that you would give us, as we approach Christmastime, a gift of joy in your Son, who was incarnated here in this world for the sake of us, we pray in His name, Amen.
Book reference: Yet in the Dark Streets Shining: A Palestinian Story of Hope and Resilience in Bethlehem by Bishara Awad and Mercy Aiken
Click Here To Purchase
| 
