Video: Christmas message from the Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches Dr. Michel Abs

A Child is Born, God is Incarnated

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches

This message is sent from the Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches, the servant of the Churches and the people of the area where Christ is born, the area named the cradle of civilization, and at the same time the cradle of Christianity.

The birth of the incarnated Savior on his land, the land of the Levant, the land of Palestine, is by itself a message to humanity.

Since times immemorial, when our sailors subdued the seas spreading the alphabet, till the time when the Lord told his disciples “Go and preach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” the path is one: Love, Sharing and Openness. The civilization our people have built has always conveyed this message to humanity.

In poverty and persecution, the Child is born.

As a refugee the Child is born, threatened to be killed at any moment by a tyrant in his furious rage for power and domination.

Defenseless is the Child in front of the heavily armed children killers.

A stranger is the Child, in His land and amidst his people blinded by bigotry and greed.

In a modest place the Child is born, a place far below the prestige of the tyrant palaces.

In a cold place the Child is born, far below the warmth of the comfortable dwellings of powerful people.

Very few were those who showed charity to the Christ-Child at His birth. Animals were more human with him than some men.

Two millennia later the scenery is the same in the Levant.

Corruption and tyranny chase down the promise incarnated by the new generation. Children perish only for the sole reason of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Children perish while defending their right of presence on their land with slingshots as they try to safeguard their culture and heritage.

A child was born in Bethlehem a long time ago.

Two millennia later, children now witness their homes being destroyed and their trees uprooted. Children are revamped time and again, to foreigners, refugees, and persecuted people.

Two millennia after the birth of the Christ-child, humanity remains silent, in a doubtful complicity of being partner in the destruction of the Levant, the cradle of civilization and Christianity. Only a few people do not accept to be false witnesses today and get mobilized for rescue and support.

The whole of humanity is called to wake up and redress the situation, to intervene for rescue, as it lends a helping hand for the survival of a civilization, as well as of a culture, the presence of which is fundamental for the whole planet.

Whoever disregards injustice is but a mute devil.

It remains true today in the land of the Levant as it was in the day of the Advent of the Son, born to us in a cradle in Bethlehem, that “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head” (Luke 9 :58).

In an ever-present Today, He who hung the earth upon the waters, is hung upon the Cross of a global indifference. He who is King of the angels, is arrayed by an apathetic world in a crown of thorns. He who wraps the heavens in clouds, is wrapped in the purple of mockery by the diffident pragmatic framework of current human praxis. He who in Jordan set Adam free, receives blows upon His face by a callous world. The Bridegroom of the Church is transfixed with nails by a listless society. The Son of the Virgin lain in a manger is pierced with a spear by the silent structural characteristics of higher scale humankind.

In this, our ever-present Today, let us then join, as His Church, in a prayerful supplication, singing in one voice to the Christ-Child as we borrow the words of the fifteenth antiphon we sing in the Eastern Matins:

“Give me this stranger, who from infancy has been as a stranger, a sojourner in the world.

Give me this stranger, whom His own race has hated and delivered unto death as a stranger.”

“Give me this stranger, who in a strange manner is a stranger to death.”

“Give me this stranger, who has received the poor as guests.”

“Give me this stranger, whom humankind from envy estranged from the world.”

“Give me this stranger, that I may hide him in a tomb, for as a stranger He has no place to lay His head.”

We venerate Thy Lowly Birth, O Christ. We are wounded within our hearts seeing Thee in Thy estrangement as one dead to our world. We beseech Thee Lord, as you are lain today in the dark cave of our callousness, to bestow upon us all Thy Great Mercy.

Show us the power of Thy Glorious Resurrection for in Thy Resurrection we take courage and magnify Thee.

Beirut, December 25th, 2020