Lebanon/Syria #12: Christology
“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say that I am?” – Matthew 16:15
This blog began in the last hours in Damascus as I lay in bed, the concept keeping me awake most of the night. The next morning we began the return to Lebanon, recrossing the border I wrote about one week before. I had composed the entire thing mostly in my head, but waited until today, Tuesday, to put it down. My responsibility in reporting was to cover Monday and Tuesday, and even though I had the words given to me on Sunday, I needed to be fair to our final days as a team here in Beirut. As it happens, what I saw and heard today fit beautifully in the framework already established. Of course. Jehovah Jirah...God provides.
One of the last people I spoke with in Damascus was Yousef Khasho, one of five NEST graduates that I had the opportunity to write about last year. All five are actively involved in pastoral roles now in their native Syria. Yousef is getting ready to begin a master’s back at the Near East School of Theology, and I asked him his area of study. “Christology,” he said.
In my own post-graduate studies in theology, which ended due to family matters, my favorite class had been about Christology. Mike Kuhn had preached on the fuller text in Matthew that follows the quote above when we were in Yazdieh. But it is that small, one-verse excerpt that strikes me now as it did then. Jesus didn’t ask this question when he first gathered the twelve. It was asked closer to the end of their discipleship journey, or nearer the end of their “seminary” education if you will. He asked them after they had spent time with him, learning about him and his ministry.
Direct the question at yourself: “Who do YOU – Julie, Mike, Yousef – say that I am?” What is YOUR Christology? “What have you learned about me after traveling with me?”
Every theologian has a Christology. Every gospel writer has a Christology. Paul and James and the author of Hebrews each have a Christology. Since I am writing today, and since it has been reflected back to me over and over, this blog is about mine, what I have learned in my “seminary” travels with The Outreach Foundation, including this one. Interestingly enough, today’s journey was about education. How appropriate!
At each church we visited in Syria, we left an early Christmas gift: a beautiful Advent-themed banner to hang in the sanctuary. Prepare the way, we said. A baby is coming. His name shall be called Emmanuel, God-with-us.
And there is my Christology. Who do I say Jesus is? The proclamation of his birth defines it in one word: Emmanuel. He is God with us, every step of the way.
We walked from the hotel this morning to Haigazian University, whose roots are in the Armenian Evangelical Church. It began in the home of an American missionary named Elizabeth Webb, who turned her domicile into a school and home for young Armenian girls without hope, having been driven out of their homeland, many probably orphans. Here they found Emmanuel, and hope, in a loving, learning environment.
In very dark and hard times in Lebanon due to Covid, political crisis, economic meltdown, and lack of almost everything, campus life has returned to this small liberal arts university, where everyone knows each other and cares for each other. Though many have left and many more will leave, we spent time with five amazing students who proudly declared their love for not only this school but for this country. Joyce, who wants to go into Christian education, if offered a chance to leave said she would not go. To paraphrase another young woman from this trip, God has given her a word for Lebanon, and not somewhere outside. She has begun a project on campus of interfaith dialogue, living in a pluralistic religious place, which will change this place. Even in a place where faculty are working hard to teach morals in an immoral political environment, whereas they say, “religion kills,” she projects Emmanuel, and is infectious with her joy.
From Haigazian, we walk back to NEST, the seminary of the Synod, where most of the pastors serving in Lebanon and Syria have had their theological educations. We visit the library and are shown the original manuscript of the book of Luke translated to Arabic by Cornelius van Dyke and others. This version of the Bible is still the main one used in Arabic-speaking churches all over the world. In that book, Mary receives word that she will bear a son, this Jesus, Emmanuel, God-with-us. There it was in Arabic for the first time and now spread all over.
From the library, we headed up the stairs for lunch with the students who are there currently. Marilyn, Steve, and I shared a table with George Shammas, a young man from Aleppo, who will graduate in January, ready to go where the Synod sends him. Like the five I wrote about, George will go having spent his time in seminary gaining new insight into that question, “Who do you say I am?” He will have been immersed in the suffering of war, the devastation of economic and political collapse and dysfunction, the destruction of a port blast, and the isolation of pandemic. But I believe he will go forth in hope, and with a message: Do not fear. God is with us. Emmanuel. That is who he is. That is what we have learned walking with him on this journey.
by Julie Burgess, West Hills Church, Omaha, Nebr.