When the holiday lights come down, our commitment to world peace must endure - William Lambers in The Patriot News

"It’s important that each of us be an advocate for peace and charity. You can do this by speaking out and letting your elected officials know your support of humanitarian aid." -William Lambers

Dec. 28, 2025

As we enter the New Year of 2026 each of us has the power to carry on the holiday spirit of peace and charity. As President Dwight Eisenhower once remarked during a Christmas/New Year event, “When the trees come down and the lights are put away--as they always are--then we have a true testing of the spirit.

“That testing will be answered, throughout the year ahead, by the success each of us experiences in keeping alive the inspiration and exaltation of this moment.”

We must keep the Christmas spirit alive year round to prevent war, end hunger and build peace.

As President Eisenhower said at the 1956 Pageant of Peace Ceremonies, “We must believe that the truth of Christmas is constant; that men can live together in peace as Lincoln said, “with charity for all, with firmness in the right.”

Eisenhower urged peaceful means to settle disputes, instead of resorting to war which often leads to harmful and lasting consequences.

As we enter a new year with new challenges, America must remember its roots as a peaceful and charitable nation.

As we try to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza, we must also prevent war from starting with Venezuela. Members of Congress have rightly expressed alarm over the U.S. military buildup... READ MORE 

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2025/12/when-the-holiday-lights-come-down-our-commitment-to-world-peace-must-endure-opinion.html?gift=49d3311d-37f0-4767-8254-3a47e1facc74 

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Feliz Navidad 2025- Nativity scene made by the follower Elduayen Navallas Roc, a Franciscan tertiary from Navarre.

Feliz Navidad 2025- Nativity scene made by the follower Elduayen Navallas Roc, a Franciscan tertiary from Navarre.

 P. Gabriel Romanelli

@PGabRomanelli

Translated from Spanish 

Today the Church also remembers the Holy Innocents, little lights that departed before their time, but whose offering remains alive in the heart of our faith. 

 

May their memory invite us to be protectors of life, to care for the purity of the smallest ones, and to remember that, even in moments of darkness, innocence shines with an unstoppable force. 

 

May they intercede for all the children of the world.  

 

In the images, one can see a nativity scene made by the follower Elduayen Navallas Roc, a Franciscan tertiary from Navarre.

 

https://x.com/PGabRomanelli/status/2005363246732394981/photo/4 

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Feliz Navidad 2025- Nativity scene made by the follower Elduayen Navallas Roc, a Franciscan tertiary from Navarre.

 

Feliz Navidad 2025- Nativity scene made by the follower Elduayen Navallas Roc, a Franciscan tertiary from Navarre.

Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, care for the sick, comfort the afflicted, love the outcast, inspire the hopeless.

Bethlehem, Palestine today ... Christmas Day 2025... "The birthplace of Jesus - Bethlehem, [Palestine] 🇵🇸 - is walled off from the world by Israel, shrunk to less than 15% of its size by land grab & isolated from its twin city Jerusalem. Yet Christmas for Palestinians is a joyous national holiday of hope in justice. Merry Christmas to all." Nour Odeh

Bethlehem, Palestine today

https://x.com/chunguskitten/status/2003867271375249501/photo/2

https://x.com/chunguskitten 

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Nour Odeh #FreePalestine

@nour_odeh

The birthplace of Jesus - Bethlehem, [Palestine]  - is walled off from the world by Israel, shrunk to less than 15% of its size by land grab & isolated from its twin city Jerusalem. Yet Christmas for Palestinians is a joyous national holiday of hope in justice. Merry Christmas to all.

https://x.com/nour_odeh/status/2003854280357249049

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Christmas is not a Western story – it is a Palestinian one: Christmas is a story of empire, injustice and the vulnerability of ordinary people caught in its path.... "This Christmas, our invitation to the global church — and to Western Christians in particular — is to remember where the story began. To remember that Bethlehem is not a myth but a place where people still live. If the Christian world is to honour the meaning of Christmas, it must turn its gaze to Bethlehem — not the imagined one, but the real one, a town whose people today still cry out for justice, dignity and peace." Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac

By Rev Dr Munther Isaac

A Palestinian pastor and theologian.

Published On 24 Dec 2025

 

The sun rises over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on December 24, 2025 [Yosri Aljamal/Reuters]

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Every December, much of the Christian world enters a familiar cycle of celebration: carols, lights, decorated trees, consumer frenzy and the warm imagery of a snowy night. In the United States and Europe, public discourse often speaks of “Western Christian values”, or even the vague notion of “Judeo-Christian civilisation”. These phrases have become so common that many assume, almost automatically, that Christianity is inherently a Western religion — an expression of European culture, history and identity.

It is not.

Christianity is, and has always been, a West Asian / Middle Eastern religion. Its geography, culture, worldview and founding stories are rooted in this land — among peoples, languages and social structures that look far more like those in today’s Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan than anything imagined in Europe. Even Judaism, invoked in the term “Judeo-Christian values”, is itself a thoroughly Middle Eastern phenomenon. The West received Christianity — it certainly did not give birth to it.

And perhaps nothing reveals the distance between Christianity’s origins and its contemporary Western expression more starkly than Christmas — the birth story of a Palestinian Jew, a child of this land who was born long before modern borders and identities emerged.

What the West made of Christmas

In the West, Christmas is a cultural marketplace. It is commercialised, romanticised and wrapped in layers of sentimentality. Lavish gift-giving overshadows any concern for the poor. The season has become a performance of abundance, nostalgia, and consumerism — a holiday stripped of its theological and moral core.

Even the familiar lines of the Christmas song Silent Night obscure the true nature of the story: Jesus was not born into serenity but into upheaval.

He was born under military occupation, to a family displaced by an imperial decree, in a region living under the shadow of violence. The holy family were forced to flee as refugees because the infants of Bethlehem, according to the Gospel narrative, were massacred by a fearful tyrant determined to preserve his reign. Sound familiar?

Indeed, Christmas is a story of empire, injustice and the vulnerability of ordinary people caught in its path.

Bethlehem: Imagination vs reality

For many in the West, Bethlehem – the birthplace of Jesus – is a place of imagination — a postcard from antiquity, frozen in time. The “little town” is remembered as a quaint village from scripture rather than a living, breathing city with actual people, with a distinct history and culture.

Bethlehem today is surrounded by walls and checkpoints built by an occupier. Its residents live under a system of apartheid and fragmentation. Many feel cut off, not only from Jerusalem – which the occupier does not allow them to visit – but also from the global Christian imagination that venerates Bethlehem’s past while often ignoring its present.

This sentiment also explains why so many in the West, while celebrating Christmas, care little about the Christians of Bethlehem. Even worse, many embrace theologies and political attitudes that erase or dismiss our presence entirely in order to support Israel, the empire of today.

In these frameworks, ancient Bethlehem is cherished as a sacred idea, but modern Bethlehem — with its Palestinian Christians suffering and struggling to survive — is an inconvenient reality that needs to be ignored.

This disconnect matters. When Western Christians forget that Bethlehem is real, they disconnect from their spiritual roots. And when they forget that Bethlehem is real, they also forget that the story of Christmas is real.

They forget that it unfolded among a people who lived under empire, who faced displacement, who longed for justice, and who believed that God was not distant but among them.

What Christmas means for Bethlehem

So what does Christmas look like when told from the perspective of the people who still live where it all began — the Palestinian Christians? What meaning does it hold for a tiny community that has preserved its faith for two millennia?

At its heart, Christmas is the story of the solidarity of God.

It is the story of God who does not rule from afar, but is present among the people and takes the side of those on the margins. The incarnation — the belief that God took on flesh — is not a metaphysical abstraction. It is a radical statement about where God chooses to dwell: in vulnerability, in poverty, among the occupied, among those with no power except the power of hope.

In the Bethlehem story, God identifies not with emperors but with those suffering under empire — its victims. God comes not as a warrior but as an infant. God is present not in a palace but in a manger. This is divine solidarity in its most striking form: God joins the most vulnerable part of humanity.

Christmas, then, is the proclamation of a God who confronts the logic of empire.

For Palestinians today, this is not merely theology — it is lived experience. When we read the Christmas story, we recognise our own world: the census that forced Mary and Joseph to travel resembles the permits, checkpoints and bureaucratic controls that shape our daily lives today. The holy family’s flight resonates with the millions of refugees who have fled wars across our region. Herod’s violence echoes in the violence we see around us.

Christmas is a Palestinian story par excellence.

A message to the world

Bethlehem celebrates Christmas for the first time after two years without public festivities. It was painful yet necessary for us to cancel our celebrations; we had no choice.

A genocide was unfolding in Gaza, and as people who still live in the homeland of Christmas, we could not pretend otherwise. We could not celebrate the birth of Jesus while children his age were being pulled dead from the rubble.

Celebrating this season does not mean the war, the genocide, or the structures of apartheid have ended. People are still being killed. We are still besieged.

Instead, our celebration is an act of resilience — a declaration that we are still here, that Bethlehem remains the capital of Christmas, and that the story this town tells must continue.

At a time when Western political discourse increasingly weaponises Christianity as a marker of cultural identity — often excluding the very people among whom Christianity was born — it is vital to return to the roots of this story.

This Christmas, our invitation to the global church — and to Western Christians in particular — is to remember where the story began. To remember that Bethlehem is not a myth but a place where people still live. If the Christian world is to honour the meaning of Christmas, it must turn its gaze to Bethlehem — not the imagined one, but the real one, a town whose people today still cry out for justice, dignity and peace.

To remember Bethlehem is to remember that God stands with the oppressed — and that the followers of Jesus are called to do the same.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

---

• 
  Rev Dr Munther Isaac

  A Palestinian pastor and theologian

  Rev Dr Munther Isaac is a Palestinian pastor and theologian. He pastors Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ramallah and is director of the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice.

   

  https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/12/24/christmas-is-not-a-western-story-it-is-a-palestinian-one 

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Merry Christmas from Palestine- a message from Ambassador Dr. Husam Zomlot -Christmas 2025

 Palestine in the UK

@Palestine_in_UK

 

A #Christmas2025 message from H.E. Ambassador @hzomlot: 

 

This Christmas, people across the United Kingdom will gather with loved ones to mark a season of reflection, generosity, and hope. 

 

In the birthplace of Jesus, #Palestine, our people will also be celebrating Christmas despite all that they have endured and continue to endure. 

 

For Palestinians, Christmas has a special significance. It is part of our living heritage, of which we are all proud—a long history of coexistence and tolerance. 

 

This year, the Palestinian Christian community in Bethlehem will officially celebrate Christmas for the first time in two years, lighting a giant tree in front of the Holy Church of the Nativity. 

 

The message of Christmas resonates powerfully with all Palestinians—love, hope, joy, compassion, and peace. Especially in today’s world, we should remember that these are not just abstract ideals—they are moral obligations. 

 

As many of us celebrate warmth and togetherness, families in Gaza are enduring a harsh winter under siege, without adequate shelter, food, or heating. 

 

In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, our people face an uncertain future, violence, and expulsion from their homes and land. 

 

Your compassion, your love, your courage, and your refusal to look away have given us strength. 

 

Your voices calling out injustice have given us hope. 

 

For Palestinians, hope itself has become an act of courage—an insistence that even in the darkest moments, our humanity cannot be erased. 

 

Christmas is often described as a time of hope. 

 

This Christmas, let us hope that the coming year will bring us closer to a just and lasting peace.

 https://x.com/Palestine_in_UK/status/2003468116903264291

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Carrying the hope of Christmas ... the children of Palestine

Saturday, December 20, 2025, Photos from the second day of the pastoral visit to Gaza, where His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, accompanied by His Excellency Archbishop William Shomali, presided over the Divine Mass in the parish, followed by the presentation of a Christmas play by the children of the parish, and concluded with the distribution of Christmas gifts to them, carrying the hope of Christmas   

Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

@LPJerusalem

Palestine's Children of Gaza Nativity 2025

Palestine's Children of Gaza Nativity 2025

Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem issue a Christmas Message for their congregations and the to Christians around the world, 2025

  https://x.com/LPJerusalem/status/2003050636691317182/photo/2

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A baptism in Gaza today. Welcome the Holy Land’s newest Christian son

https://x.com/chunguskitten/status/2002766202427654609

Sunday, 21 December 2025, photos from the third and final day of the Christmas pastoral visit to Gaza, during which His Beatitude Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa presided over the Christmas Mass at the Holy Family Church. During the Mass, he administered First Communion to nine parishioners and the Sacrament of Baptism to a child  https://x.com/LPJerusalem/status/2002763147787030836/photo/3

 

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa celebrated First Communion and a Baptism in Gaza City this morning. Sunday, December 21, 2025. Day 807  https://x.com/chunguskitten/status/2002733600358429176/photo/1

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https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/21/middleeast/catholic-patriarch-gaza-church-christmas-mass-intl 

"At least 401 people have been killed since the ceasefire on October 11, the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported on Saturday. In total, 70,925 Palestinians have been killed and 171,185 people injured since October 7, 2023, when Hamas and other militant groups launched an attack on Israel, the health ministry said.  

CNN footage from Gaza City on Sunday showed loud bells chiming over the parish, where a baby, Mario, was baptized to mark “new life” and “new hope,” according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Red and gold baubles, green wreaths and ribbons were dotted around the Holy Family Church, and a tall Christmas tree draped in tinsel was erected in the corner. "  

CNN News: ‘We are still here.’ Catholic patriarch leads Christmas Mass at Gaza church bombed by Israel during the war