From Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor from Bethlehem. Reposted from social media (Dec 19, 2025).

Today I had the chance to visit Christmas Lutheran Church, where I served for more than ten years—eight of them as the main pastor. Returning to a place that shaped so much of my life and ministry is never an easy experience. It carries memory, prayer and appreciation.

Under the faithful and courageous leadership of my dear friend Rev. Ashraf Tannous, the church made a deliberate and meaningful decision: to keep Christ in the Rubble—but to place it under the Christmas tree. This old-new crib spoke to me again.

The rubble remains. The broken stones are still there. The Christ child still lies among the rubble, reminding us that God chose not safety, not power, not palaces—but vulnerability and solidarity with the crushed of the earth. And yet now, rising from that rubble, stands a tree – a living tree.

For me, this is a profoundly Palestinian image—and a profoundly Christian one.

The tree is declaration. It is the tree of life. It is defiance in the face of death. It is hope planted where despair is expected to rule.

The tree appears almost as if it grows out of the rubble itself. Not beside it. Not after it is cleared away. But from within it. This is our story.

This is the story of Palestinians—and of the Palestinian Church.

We live amid ruins, yet we insist on life.

We bury our dead, yet we plant trees.

We endure siege, displacement, and erasure, yet we keep saying: we want to live. And we will continue.

We will continue, in defiance, to preach peace.

We will continue to proclaim life.

We will continue to hope—stubbornly, faithfully—in the promise that comes from this child, the child of Bethlehem.

The Christ who was born under empire.

The Christ who became a refugee.

The Christ who still lies today in the rubble of Gaza, in the ruins of homes, churches, hospitals, and lives torn apart.

Oh come, let us adore Him—as Emmanuel, God-with-us, God-with-the-wounded, God-with-the-oppressed.

As I stood there, I felt again what this symbol was always meant to say:

Rubble does not have the final word. Death does not have the final word. Empire does not have the final word.

Life does. God does.

Please: Pray for Gaza, wounded and buried under relentless destruction, and today in severe weather conditions. Pray for Palestinians under siege in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Pray for the church, which faces a constant and real threat of displacement, silencing, and disappearance. And pray for all victims of violence, including state violence, everywhere in the world.

And may this child continue to disturb us, challenge us, and call us—not only to prayer, but to faithfulness.