2012 Christmas Greeting from the LWF President
Children holding hands in the Za'atri refugee camp. The LWF is present in Jordan supporting Syrian refugees with winter clothing, winterization of tents, prefabricated container houses and psychosocial support. © Magnus Aronson
Call on LWF Churches to Continue Commitment to Refugees and Other Displaced People
The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) President Bishop Dr Munib A. Younan brings Christmas greetings to churches in the Lutheran communion and invites them to continue in the commitment to provide refuge to those who are marginalized, displaced and persecuted throughout the world.
“Our call is to provide refuge from violence and poverty, shelter in the storms, and shade from the heat,” says the LWF president in his 2012 Christmas greeting.
His reflections are on God’s message of reconciliation (Isaiah 25:4 -38) and the hope of Christmas as Mary and Joseph seek safety for Jesus (Luke 2:7 and Matthew 2).
“We can see the faces of the Holy Family today in refugee families” forced to flee from Syria, Somalia and other parts of the world, and in the experiences of Roma communities in Europe, says Younan who is bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.
This Christmas season, says the LWF president, “Christ finds his manger in every person who seeks asylum, in each of the nearly 44 million refugees and internally displaced people throughout the world.”
On LWF’s work among refugees since the organization’s founding in 1947, Younan notes that the response to the needs of nearly 1.5 million people today “reflects the strength of our communion working together to respond to God’s call to welcome the stranger.”
The Palestinian bishop emphasizes that “many refugees are uprooted with little hope for a solution.” A refugee himself, Younan adds, “I know what it means to be rejected, neglected and stateless.”
The duty of the church, he adds, is to be a safe haven for those fleeing. “They must find a place in our inn.”
The president calls on the LWF member churches “to pray for peace based on justice and reconciliation based on forgiveness” in the various contexts of conflict today, especially in the Middle East, and that refugees can find justice. (341 words)
Read the full text of the LWF President’s Christmas greeting.
Follow the LWF President’s Christmas greeting on video.