And when the Lord God formed Man from the dust of the Earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, God made Man full of contradiction. “First, you shall pray to me,” He decreed. “And then you will betray me,” He divined. “You shall honor me,” He declared. “And then you will forsake me,” He foretold. But as His oblivious children were basking in the innocence of the garden, heeding not His words, He then whispered under His gentle breath: “But the promise of redemption shall follow each of you like your shadows for all the days of your lives.”

If we Christians are to believe the Creation myth, then we must believe that this story, or some rendition of it, happened, too. As pious as we profess to be, one day each of us is destined to contradict our own values. One day, each of us is damned to oppose our own beliefs. One day, each of us will become St. Peter, who disowned Christ three times and who, on the third time, heard the rooster crow and went outside to weep. 

Each of us—children of God—is destined to be a hypocrite. The countless hours of watching the chaos of the world callously unfold through the eyes of another or through my own eyes have affirmed to me this truth. I see it in how we Americans celebrate our independence while we have long stifled the pursuits of independence of others. I see it in how we Christians indulge in holiday pomp, inundate others with Christmas gifts and decorate with vibrant Easter eggs, while in our cruel apathy, we deny Him His most solemn request: to love even those least of our brothers and sisters. 

And who are among our brothers and sisters? Those poor in spirit, those mourning and meek, those weary-eyed and restless, those who christen the squalor of the refugee camps as their precious homes, and those who carry upon their shoulders the weight of family heirlooms that they inherited far too soon. Those who breathe gunpowder as their fresh air, who hear the incessant buzz of drones as their morning songbirds, and who salt the cratered Earth with their abundant tears. In short, the children of Gaza.

As Americans, we love to extract stories from Palestine—the nativity, the ministry, the many miracles, the Passion—and to neatly package them into picturesque and precisely wrapped gifts to be sold at a dime a dozen. And what do we give Palestinians in return? Cities of slaughter. Munitions by which to kill them in their tens of thousands. Bombs with which to bury them in the mass graves of their childhood homes. There is nothing merry about our financing this murder, nothing joyful in our inflicting immeasurable pain. There is no honor in our bloodlust. We have fulfilled no duty by way of our silence. We have only consigned ourselves to our fate: to be full of contradiction. 

But in the protests and vigils I’ve attended—peopled by Americans of walks of life and of faiths the world over—there are legions whom I have witnessed having gone outside to weep. They are the many who have turned to greet their loyal shadow and to find that it still thrums with the promise of redemption. They are the unsung who call out contradiction. They are the protesters, the objectors, the boycotters, and the activists whose truths upend the party platform. They are the pioneers who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who believe that in spite of this country’s inescapable contradictions, it still can be redeemed. 

Redemption is a theme that permeates all throughout the Bible. It acts as a branding of faith far more sincerely than does the convenience of merriness or the drunkenness of celebration. It is what gave Peter his sainthood. Its promise begets perseverance. It animated the courage of the early Christians as they sought to overcome imperial persecution. And it will help realize the dreams of millions of Palestinians—and a great many others all throughout this Earth—who hope simply to be free. 

May we Christians who contradict ourselves by our apathy, especially for Palestine, see our silence as Peter’s denial. As it happened with Peter, may our shame and humility compel us to go outside and weep. For just as Peter thrice disowned Him, daily do we forget that if Jesus was born today, He would be born under the scorched rubble in Gaza, under the unforgiving Israeli occupation in Bethlehem. May we know intimately that our complicity would have caused Jesus to be born not in a manger, but amidst mangled tents. That by our doing, His birth would be welcomed not with gleeful celebrations but with massacres of innocents. The innkeeper would have turned His family away not because there are no more rooms, but because there is no more inn. 

May we Christians remember that if Jesus was born today, there would be no three kings bearing gifts. They are three paramedics bearing bloodied fingers as they claw through a destroyed living room in the hope that a helpless victim lives just long enough merely to feel as if she will not die alone. They are guided not by a heralding star. They follow the sounds of falling bombs and muffled screams.

May we remember that if Jesus was born today, His mother would be a Palestinian refugee, dispossessed and forced to move between house and feeble house, grieving between kin and murdered kin. She would be vilified by the New York Times, which would excoriate her for daring to bring a child into this world to be used as a “human shield.” They who shame brown mothers, all while forgetting that to love in time of war is prayer. They who forsake that their god so loved the world that He gave His one and only son.

May we remember that if Jesus was born today, His disciples would be journalists, each to be killed in their own time. Some will die sitting at home while sipping tea with their families when an American-supplied JDAM dropped by an American-built F-16 eviscerates their house. Others will die during the course of their work, persecuted because they bear a PRESS on their back. They will be denied the outrage their exterminations deserve. Their martyrdom will not be venerated as those saints of ancient past. Their martyrdom will be rejected outright, their memories damned, and those who supplied their killers with weapons will wash their hands before the multitudes and say that they are “innocent of the blood of this just person.” 

May we remember that if Jesus was born today, He would still be a peacemaker. Still would He bless the oppressed and those who mourn. Still would He heal the broken-hearted and bind their wounds. Still would He love the lowly and the meek. He would protest, boycott, strike in solidarity with Palestinians. He would stand up against antisemitism. He would proudly wear a keffiyeh. He would light a candle at a vigil. He would get into “good trouble.” He would command that mercy be shown. He would condemn violence. He would demand a ceasefire, the release of hostages and kidnapped political prisoners, and an end to violence and the occupation. He would call for the delivery of humanitarian aid. He would say “Never Again”—and mean it. 

But for this, He would be persecuted. He would be doxxed, beaten by police officers, demonized by politicians, accused of inciting hatred and supporting terrorism. His job offer would be rescinded. He would be expelled from school for His Facebook posts or for His participation in anti-war protests. He would witness His universities cower and prostitute themselves to the interests of ultra-wealthy donors. He would be shot at while walking down the sidewalk with His friends, one of whom will remain paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. 

And for this ministry, He would be crucified. He would strip himself naked, carry a white flag over his head as His crown of thorns, emerge from the burnt rubble crying and pleading for his life in Hebrew. He would have written the word “Help” on the flag with whatever scant food leftovers He could find. And then He would be shot at by Israeli soldiers. Not once, but several times. He would dash back into the wreckage of a former bakery, sobbing that He surrenders and is unarmed. He would reemerge with the same white flag that has since turned into a red silhouette of His face, only to be shot at once again by those soldiers. He would utter as His last words, “My brothers, my brothers, why have you forsaken me?” And then His body would be unceremoniously bulldozed over and pressed into spent bullet casings and Earth that tastes of fresh blood. His grave would be shared. Their graves would be nameless. 

But by no small miracle, His is a story that is not yet finished. 

For the seeds of that hallowed land lay dormant underneath His corpse. And on the third day, the crushed body that housed that bruised soul becomes the soil for those seeds to rise again. For those seeds to become the seedlings to cast a shadow to remind us all that we are each redeemed by our rising again. For those seeds to become the seedlings to grow into an orchard for His children to attend to when we, at last, go outside and weep.