I think part of the reason we are going is to show solidarity with a besieged town. We feel deeply concerned about the suffering that is being caused by the poverty, the unemployment, the lack of tourists, of Christian pilgrims who go and don't even stay the night. We intend to stay two nights in Bethlehem and we support the Open Bethlehem project. I think to just go and listen is so important. I am trying to drill it into myself that I am going as an act of solidarity alongside the act of pilgrimage but I am also going to be a listening believer, to listen to what it is like. I will only be there three or four days and I'll be in and out and back home to safety. I want to go and listen to those who will not leave as I do and enjoy the security I have.
I have been this year to Vietnam and to Moscow and I have met with friends I met when they were not free and the wonderful grace and gift of God for those who are living under extreme pressure - and remember there are Christians on both sides of the wall and my heart is for those who live in Israel as well as Palestine - but the gift of hope seems to come in an abundant measure to those who seem bereft of hope. We look at a situation humanly and say that looks hopeless. But the gift of hope is to demonstrate in a hopeless situation that this is a hope that is beyond human understanding. The peace that is beyond human understanding is also the gift of hope and joy and love. That fruit of the Spirit that we know is at the heart of Christian discipleship seems to flower in situations like that rather than be crushed. So I am going to listen and to learn and certainly be inspired.
How optimistic are you that 2007 will bring some positive developments in this respect?
I think you always have to be positive because in our lifetime we have lived through the end of apartheid in South Africa and seen the Berlin Wall come down and those great historic events were really unthinkable in the darkest days of apartheid in South Africa and the darkest days of Communism in Eastern Europe, we just never dreamt of it although we hoped beyond hope that something would happen. So there has always got to be a possibility.
I have been reading the Advent Story again and I was reading in the Psalms again how the ministry of the Son of Righteousness who is going to come, the righteous branch who we now know is Jesus, would be to stand alongside the poor, bring justice and banish the oppressor. So there is a very earthly aspect. We don't just sing beautiful carols! The coming of the King is the breaking in of the Kingdom. I can't say when God's Kingdom will break in but I just pray there will be breaking in.
There are suffering people on all sides; people in Israel have suffered and people in Palestine have suffered, and for the sake of ordinary people, Lord give us peace in our time. That would be my prayer.
The link with the peace plan for Iraq you can't in many ways separate. If we were able to, by God's grace, see a miracle of lasting peace come to Israel and Palestine that would have a knock on effect on the conflict in Iraq. So I do have hope.
I think as Christians, if we can't have hope in Advent when can we have hope? Advent is the season of hope, when we remember God's promises being fulfilled in the past and we pray, do it in our time Lord.
There has been a steady exodus of Christians from Bethlehem and there are great concerns about the dwindling Christian population in the Holy Land. How concerned are you by this?
