Holding Onto Emmanuel

A message from the Sabeel community

As we celebrate this Christmas season, we give thanks for your gifts of friendship and solidarity with the people of Palestine. Your support, prayers, and commitment to justice and peace sustain us and encourage our work every day.

We especially honor those who are willing to take risks to challenge systems of power, yet remain steadfast in the message of Christ. We are grateful for those who share their daily bread with those who are suffering and stand with those who are oppressed.

Bringing God into a broken world is not easy. For so long, many of our churches, especially those in the West, preach that God is neutral. But the oppressed know that God’s love is alive in the world. God is with us, teaching us how to be radically present in this world by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, consoling the grieving, and advocating for those who are overlooked. Jesus shows us how to transform faith into acts of liberating love.

In the face of overwhelming violence and despair, we proclaim that the birth of Jesus Christ is good news for the oppressed and the poor. God’s incarnation reminds us that human life is precious and that God’s love and solidarity is radical and transformative.

This Christmas is especially special to us because after over two years of unprecedented suffering and despair, the tree is lit up in Bethlehem. Christians in the Holy Land are reminding the world that we are still here, and that as long as we are present in this land, there is still hope.

May this Christmas, and every Christmas, be a time where we welcome the incarnation of Love in our midst, so that we may be revolutionary embodiments of God’s hope in every place that is yearning for justice.

Love, The Sabeel Family

For more information about the Sabeel Community visit the Canadian Friends of Sabeel. We are a Canadian Christian voice for Palestinian liberation. Through education and engagement, we support the struggle for equality in justice, freedom, and human rights of Palestinians living under apartheid and the illegal Israeli military occupation. With partners around the world, we work non-violently for a just and durable peace for Palestinians and Israelis.

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