Setting the Captives Free

 

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
    and release to the prisoners...

                       Isaiah 61:1 NRSVue

While we can all be grateful for the hostages exchanges between Hamas and the state of Israel we have to be aware that this is the outcome of a ceasefire, not a peace agreement. Hamas is a terrorist organization whose cowardly attacks precipitated a cataclysmic response by Israel that has killed thousands of civilians. There is blood on the hands of both sides, an indelible stain. So many of us have attempted to figure out where we stand during this war and for my part I can find no straightforward answer.

 It is all madness, but that's the was it is with wars, even the supposedly "just" ones. As an aging Christian who follows the Prince of Peace it becomes more difficult to establish justification for any of them. Combatants die, most of them young, and civilians are brutalized and killed. Culture is destroyed and so is the environment. 

The hostages released to Israel today are four young women who are soldiers in the IDF, the Israel Defence Forces. They were in observation posts along the border between Israel and Gaza and they, along with other female soldiers in that role, sensed that trouble was brewing but were ignored by their arrogant and dismissive superiors. As a result, many were killed and others held hostage for these 14 months. 

When we were in Jerusalem during April of 2023 Ruth asked four soldiers if she could have her photo taken with them and they happily replied. She has wondered what has happened to these women during the war, as with the teens in uniform we would see everywhere in the country, sometimes as check-points, sometimes sitting near them on trains.

God of many names, bring this senseless killing to an end and free the captives on both sides, including those imprisoned in Gaza as citizens whose daily life has been crushed. There will be joy in the families of these released women and those of the Palestinians set free.