This is the third in a four-part series on Kingdom imagination, drawn from a talk delivered at the Justice Conference Asia 2025. The first part explored imagination as the bridge between the here and the not yet of God’s Kingdom. The second looked at how the Spirit reclaims the realm of the possible. This part asks: how does imagination disrupt cynicism and despair?

As people who live in contexts of prolonged injustice, we become thoroughly familiar with all the details of the oppressive systems we live under. We know which homes are set to be demolished. We know which roads are dangerous to drive on. We know which tragedies will attract international headlines, and which will remain under the radar. We know what international laws say, and exactly how they will be violated in our land. We have become experts in the shapes and contours of the structures that subjugate us. We need to know them in order to survive.

Yet this knowledge, with the grief it carries, can sometimes become paralysing. It can transform into crushing despair — a voice that whispers that death is final, that sin has triumphed. Once despair sets in, it becomes easy to lose sight of the fact that God has the final word. This is something we in Palestine experience regularly. Especially in these last few years, every day brings a new crime, a new atrocity. A few times I have seen a photograph coming from Gaza and said to myself: this must be fake. It cannot possibly be true. And then it turns out to be true - and it causes another corner of my heart to turn cold.

I have learned that there is a difference between grief and despair, between lament and hopelessness. Grief, when taken to God’s throne, is healing. Despair, when it takes root in our hearts, can paralyse and destroy us. Grief we need to embrace — despair we must disrupt.

Kingdom imagination disrupts despair by expanding our vision beyond present suffering. Despair narrows our sight until we can only see what is broken, what is dying, what seems hopeless. But Kingdom imagination opens our eyes to see what God sees — the cracks in the darkness, beauty breaking through, hope emerging, new life growing. It is faith: the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1). The psalmist knew this tension: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Not the denial of weeping — but the promise that weeping is not the end of the story.

Palestinian priest Rafiq Khoury, writing from the city of the crucifixion and the resurrection, names this with extraordinary clarity: “We must not forget that we are in Jerusalem, where the terrifying reality of death was transformed into a radiant revelation of life. There is no room for despair in a land where the boundaries of the impossible were pushed back to their furthest limit.” This is not optimism. It is a theological conviction rooted in the empty tomb — the claim that in this specific land, on this specific hill, the logic of death and despair was undone.

Khoury continues: “The worst thing that can happen to humanity is to abandon the field to the forces of death and destruction and war, while the forces of life remain powerless, watching, silent, and indifferent. The forces of life must enter the arena, whatever the circumstances and the risks, to bear witness to something else in the human world. It does not matter if the forces of life remain the portion of a few. The question is not one of few or many — it is a question of life or death... In Jerusalem above all, Greek fate received a decisive blow — one that awakens hope and moves humanity to stand against historical inevitabilities, refusing to surrender to their claims or yield to their logic.”

This is Kingdom imagination at its most defiant. Not the denial of darkness — but the refusal to let darkness set the terms.

This Kingdom imagination is powerful enough to disrupt despair because it is beautiful. We do not talk about beauty in our churches very much, but the Bible is brimming with it. Beauty is one of God’s core characteristics. Watch what happened at Pentecost: the Spirit broke into the world with extraordinary beauty — the sound of wind, tongues of fire, the wonder of understanding across every language barrier. People were amazed and astonished, filled with wonder in the midst of their occupied reality. The Kingdom of God is beautiful. The restoration of relationships, the flourishing of all people — it is beautiful, and it disrupts despair. It disrupts fatalism and cynicism. This is how God’s imagination works — it breaks into contexts of injustice with beauty that counters the narrative that oppression has the final word.

The verses in Psalm 27 about gazing on the Lord’s beauty are well known. But do we know the context of those verses? The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besieges me, my heart will not fear; though war breaks out against me, even then I will be confident. One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. The prayer to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze on God’s beauty — it is offered in a context of war, of violence, of fear and uncertainty.

This is the gift Kingdom imagination offers: the gift of beauty amidst pain. Not the denial of pain, but the reminder of the wonderful works of God. As Cole Arthur Riley prays in Black Liturgies:

“God of every beautiful thing,
Make us a people of wonder. Show us how to hold on to nuance and vision when our souls become addicted to pain, to the unlovely. It is far easier to see the gloom and decay; so often it sings a louder song… Grant us to fall in love again and again with the beautiful. May that enchantment keep us from the captivity of despair and usher us into dreaming. In our beholding, may we become faithful protectors of every person and piece of creation, including the earth that trembles beneath our feet.”

Kingdom imagination, with its beauty, disrupts despair. It disrupts narratives of cynicism and spirals of hopelessness. It reminds us that God is still writing this story — and that the final chapter has not yet been read.

In the final part: how Kingdom imagination catalyzes us into action.

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As Christians around the world celebrate Holy Week, I found myself, in Nazareth, grappling with the meaning of its events. Not as a historical event, but as a question: how are we to understand the cross and the resurrection in the midst of yet another war in this land? What does it mean to speak of life, of victory, of hope, when death feels so close, so constant, so unrelenting?

I found myself returning to the writings of fellow Palestinian Christians, drawn by the sense that no single voice can carry the weight of this moment alone. Perhaps, together, in the fragments, we might begin to glimpse something like beauty emerging from the ashes.

What follows is a collection of reflections and meditations by Palestinian Christians. Moving through the arc of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, these writings invite us to read Easter again from within the very landscape in which it first unfolded—a landscape now marked by grief, loss, and endurance. Across generations, traditions, and tones, these voices do not offer simple comforts. Instead, they open up a more honest encounter with the cross and the resurrection, helping us to see them anew.

Friday

On Friday, we reflect on Jesus’ path to the cross: his pain and agony as he was abandoned by his many of his friends, mocked by the crowds, unjustly judged by the authorities, and, at last, crucified and hung to die.

Shadia Qubti first takes us to the garden of Gethsemane (April 2025):

“The olive trees of Gethsemane still stand today. Some have witnessed two millennia of prayers and tears. They have absorbed the weight of empires. They have witnessed Jesus’ anguished cry and today witness Palestinian anguish. What the olive press teaches us remains true across time and space: Resistance to suffering is not faithlessness but is woven into the very fabric of faith. Jesus did not glorify suffering but resisted it even as he ultimately faced it. His genuine plea to have “this cup” removed stands as eternal validation for all who cry out against injustice. The olive pit may be pressed, but it need not break. And even if some pits crack under unprecedented pressure, new trees will grow. This is the mystery at the heart of Gethsemane — that resistance and endurance can coexist, that honest protest before God can accompany faithful presence in suffering.

As Holy Week approaches, we stand between Gethsemane and Gaza. We are called to remain awake when others sleep, to bear witness when witnessing itself becomes a heavy burden. We are called to recognize that while pressure may produce something precious, we should never glorify the crushing itself. May we carry with us the courage to say with Jesus, “Take this cup from me” when faced with injustice, and the strength to remain present when the cup remains. May we honor the Palestinian commitment to dignity and life even in the face of crushing pressure, reflecting Jesus’ own faithful resistance in Gethsemane. And may we, like those ancient olive trees, stand firmly rooted in witness to both suffering and the courage to name it.”

Dr. Grace Al-Zoughbi invites us to walk the path itself - the Via Dolorosa - to see what Jesus might see if he were to visit Jerusalem today (March 2024):

“A special tradition that is practised in our culture is walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, more commonly known as “The Way of the Cross” - what is believed to be the last walk Jesus took when he was carrying the very cross on which he would be crucified… On my way to Jerusalem, as I venture through the checkpoints and enter the ancient city, I wonder if Jesus would still be sad for Jerusalem. I also wonder what it is that he sees as he gazes at the city today? What grieves his compassionate heart? Are there people still shouting, “Crucify him!”? Are there people who are renouncing his Kingdom and Kingship? Jerusalem was the site of the greatest victory ever achieved; the city where evil was overcome, death defeated, injustice conquered and the forces of darkness chained. None of this would have taken place if it wasn’t for the cross. And yet, how often do we forget to boast in the power of the cross!”

Dr. Yousef AlKhouri helps us name what the cross declares and what it demands of us (April 2020):

“The cross carries a liberating meaning, in two dimensions. First, on the cross God broke the bond of sin and death over humanity. Second, the cross symbolizes a challenge to corrupt political, economic, religious, and social systems. Christ died because he was outspoken in challenging the corrupt status quo, supported by the alliance between the religious establishment in Jerusalem and the forces of Roman occupation… Silence in the face of injustice was not something Christ would accept… On the cross, God demolished all the walls separating humanity from God, and humanity from one another. From the cross, we as Palestinians are called to reject injustice, to hold fast to the truth, to free ourselves from fear, and to work toward the building of God’s just Kingdom.”

Dr. Rula Khoury Mansour urges us to remain with Jesus in what feels like the end (April 2025):

“At the thirteenth station, Jesus is taken down from the cross. Even in death, someone shows up. To hold the broken. To mourn with dignity. There is sacredness in the sorrow. Mourning is love, too. We don’t skip this part. We sit in it. Because even here, in the stillness and sorrow, God is present. In a year of massive loss of life, this station felt especially heavy - mourning and remembering the lives taken by violence, the bodies never held, and the grief left unspoken and unseen. At the fourteenth, and last, station, Jesus is laid in the tomb. And silence. The kind that feels like the end. The kind that sits in hospitals, refugee camps, and graveyards. It’s the ache of despair, the gut-wrenching fear that morning may never come. But it never is. Because even in the tomb, Christ was already defeating death.”

Saturday

On Saturday, we reflect on the seeming silence of God. Saturday is the day of the in-between. The liminal space where all hope seems to have been lost. Nothing seems to move.

Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb describes this long waiting in Palestine - stretching decades (March 2024):

“We keep asking: Who will roll away the stone? We have been living for more than seven decades, keeping a long Easter vigil. We keep asking if and when Sunday will come, when this oppression will end, when we will obtain our freedom to live in dignity and to reach our full potential. We are waiting not for angels to roll away the stone, but rather people who hear the call for justice, for liberation, for peace. Imagine the impact we could make if from every corner of the world, our collective call for action — for a cease-fire, for the liberation of all captives — became impossible to ignore.”

John and Samuel Munayer draw us into the interior of this day - the confusion, grief, and difficulty of hope (April 2024):

“Imagine Mary, who bore witness to the immense suffering and crucifixion of Christ, enduring a long and traumatic Saturday. With no one to turn to and no saviour or political/religious authority to appeal to, she stood helplessly by as her teacher was subjected to abuse. Mary must have felt alone and defeated. In many ways, Palestinians can identify with the Magdalene. We feel alone and defeated as our people suffer oppression whilst the global community remains silent… Like Mary, our Saturday is long and traumatic. We must not obscure the crucifixion with the resurrected Christ, leaping from Friday to Sunday, without seriously considering the long Saturday since we might be at risk of ignoring or glorifying suffering… The mission of hope in the resurrected Messiah is one where our tears impair the vision of hope as we weep and become unclear as we wrestle with trauma. But that is when the mystery of hope is found—amidst hopelessness. There is no resurrection without crucifixion, no hope without despair. We must continue to love and be faithful to our Lord, even when things are hard and uncertain. And maybe, like Mary, in the darkness and pain, we will be able to recognise the voice of resurrection, giving us strength to persevere and empower others.”

Sunday

On Sunday, we celebrate God’s triumph over death. Not attempting to escape what came before it, but speaking from within it.

Cedar Duaybis invites us to reconsider where we are looking for hope (April 2022):

“It is custom here in our land for the women to visit the tomb on the second day after the burial. This is the way they support one another, the way they stand with those who grieve. On that first Easter, they did not go on the second day because it was the Sabbath. Instead, they went on Sunday, the third day, when Jesus rose from the dead. They stood together, bewildered, not knowing what to think. And then the angels said to them: Why do you search for the living among the dead? This question struck me deeply, because it speaks to a core problem of ours here in the land. We are always searching—but not in the right place. We keep looking in the wrong places, and so we do not find what we are looking for… Just as Peter experienced what I would call a “resurrection of consciousness,” when he came to understand that God shows no favoritism, and just as the women realized they were searching in the wrong place and needed to look for the living among the living, not the dead—so too in this troubled land. We can keep searching endlessly, searching harder and harder, but we will not find what we are looking for unless we begin to look in the right place. What we need, perhaps, is a resurrection of consciousness—one that can guide us toward peace, justice, and a more stable future.”

Rev. Dr. Yohanna Katanacho brings resurrection close to those who have been living on the edge of death (September 2017):

“Perhaps Mary resembles the Palestinian people, who have lost their young men and women and experienced political and religious injustice, whose feelings are full of grief and despair. Our people have become visitors to cemeteries — and perhaps residents of them too. We have arrived at the world of death and despair. But the One who raised Mary is able to raise us from our death and give us life… The resurrection is a revolution against the world of death. The resurrection is the greatest act of rebellion against the kingdom of Satan. The resurrection is heaven’s lethal weapon — the decisive blow that crushed sin and its servants.”

Dr. Jeries Khoury situates us in the geography of Jerusalem, where Palestinian Christians today cannot reach the empty tomb (2006):

“Roman soldiers did not prevent the grieving women from coming to Jesus’s tomb. But today Palestinian Christians are not able to visit the empty tomb, and so we wait at the outskirts of Jerusalem — a city whose lands the expansionist policies of occupation have swallowed… We see Jesus walking in the streets of our beloved homeland… We understand the danger he is in when he exposes the weaponisation of religion for control and subjugation, and the use of force against impoverished occupied communities. We see Christ as our elder brother who bravely walked the same path we walk today. We shudder that he was killed with brutality and injustice. And we rejoice in the message of his resurrection, which brought peace and justice and love and joy to all humanity.”

Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac encourages us to live out the resurrection (April 2025):

“If Christ had remained in the tomb as a decomposing body, the ideals he proclaimed would have been buried with Him, and would have become nothing more than the unrealistic romantic teachings of a Palestinian teacher who lived in our land — nothing more. We would not be speaking today about the Kingdom of God among us…

When we declare on Easter Sunday Al-Maseeh Qam — Christ is Risen — we declare that the final word belongs to God. We declare that justice is served. Truth is vindicated. Caesar and Pilate and the kingdoms of this world lost… The resurrection urges us to rise and act. Because we know the final word belongs to God, we rise and act. We build. We preach love because we know love wins. We preach peace because peace wins. We preach life because death is defeated.”

Rev. Adv. Botrus Mansour reflects on the contradictions in Christ’s life on earth, culminating in the Holy Week (April 2017):

“The Judge of the world, the victorious one, entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, rather than mounting a horse as conquerors and invaders of lands do. A few days later, the One who owns all things borrows a place to share the Passover meal with his disciples. And during the meal, the Lord of lords takes a towel and water and washes his disciples’ dirty feet. The One who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who keeps watch over us, found no one to keep watch and pray with him on his final night. And on that same night, the one who proclaimed freedom for the captives is arrested by soldiers, and Judas the traitor delivers, with a deceitful kiss, the most faithful Savior of humanity. Instead of calling upon legions of heavenly angels to rescue him from the soldiers’ violent arrest, the Lord of hosts hands himself over willingly—for our sake. The religious and political leadership of Jerusalem unjustly condemns to death the One who will judge humanity. Soldiers insult and mock the One of majesty, glory, and eternal authority. His closest disciple denies him three times, forgetting that his Lord is faithful. The purest of the righteous is hung on a cross of shame between criminals. They place on him a crown of thorns instead of a crown of victory and glory. They give him vinegar to drink—he who is the living fountain for humanity. Thus, the One who knew no sin becomes sin for our sake. And the Maker and Sustainer of all finds no place for his body after death, so a rich man lends him a new tomb.

And the story of contradictions—one no human could invent—reaches its unexpected end in an empty tomb, and a living God who has triumphed over death. What a staggering ending: oppression, pain, and killing are replaced by life.”

From Nazareth, from within the weight of Friday, and the long silence of Saturday— declare with us: Al-Maseeh qam, haqqan qam! Christ is risen, risen indeed!

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This is the second in a four-part series on Kingdom imagination, drawn from a talk delivered at the Justice Conference Asia 2025. The first part explored Pentecost and Kingdom imagination as the bridge between the here and the not yet. This part asks: what happens when our imaginations have been colonised — and how does the Spirit reclaim them?

Kingdom imagination reclaims the realm of the possible.

Systems of oppression seek to dominate our imaginations, to constrict our vision, to render justice and mercy inconceivable. Oppressive leaders portray their domination as natural, inevitable, permanent. Their message is clear: there is no other way. There is no way out of military occupation. There is no alternative to segregation and racism. It is simply the way things are.

This is a colonisation of imagination. It happens through the normalisation of injustice, and the labelling of alternatives as naïve or unrealistic. It happens through presenting current realities as the natural outcome of history, rather than the result of human choices. Palestinian priest Rafiq Khoury puts it sharply: “The greatest victory of the evil of war is to delude people that it is a fate to which they must surrender.” Once we believe that, the work of imagination is already over.

The disciples were stuck in the imagination of the empire. Even after witnessing the resurrection, they couldn’t think beyond empire categories. Rome had colonised their vision so thoroughly that even God’s kingdom had to fit the empire’s mould. “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” They could not imagine a kingdom beyond national lines, a kingdom that didn’t look like the ones they already knew.

In my own Palestinian context, imaginations of supremacy, hatred, and never-ending violence have taken over the land. The Israeli occupation embeds its domination into spaces, bodies, and everyday practices. Checkpoints that hinder movement have become permanent. Home invasions and arbitrary arrests have become routine. Ethnic supremacy is portrayed as inevitable, even divinely sanctioned. These realities not only dispossess and displace us as Palestinians — they shape our collective psyche. We are stuck in a constant state of precarity that renders freedom unimaginable.

I must confess that these imaginations have seeped into my own mind. A few years ago I was reading a book on possible solutions to the situation in Israel-Palestine. In it, the author described how Israelis and Palestinians could live together in a different vision. At one point, a sentence said: in this vision, the wall will have to come down. I remember reading that sentence and my eyes filling with tears. As I sat holding the book, I realised that I had never thought it could happen — I had never thought that the wall could come down — so I had never imagined it. The wall had become so entrenched in reality that I couldn’t fathom it being torn down. My imagination too had been colonised by systems of oppression.

We cannot allow our vision of what is possible to be dictated by the powers and principalities of this world. We cannot leave the task of imagination to oppressors — oppressors want a monopoly on imagination. The Spirit of God breaks that monopoly. The Spirit empowers us to envision a different way. To challenge imaginations of exclusion and supremacy. To say: no, there is another way: the way of love, mercy, and justice.

Father Khoury reminds us: “We have a right to dream… We dream and dream and dream, and why do we dream? It is our right, and one of the signs of life in us. It is our right to affirm that dreams are not a historical illness — they are a determination and a resolve to put what we dream into practical action.”

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit broke Rome’s monopoly on imagination. Language barriers suddenly became bridges. Ethnic differences no longer caused division. The crowd was amazed and astonished, asking one another: “What does this mean?” Some even mocked, saying the disciples were drunk. They couldn’t process what they were seeing because it didn’t fit the categories they knew. The impossible was happening right in front of them.

The realm of the possible belongs to God, not to the empires of this world. To imagine against narratives of violence and supremacy is an act of theological faithfulness — a commitment to God’s upside-down Kingdom.

What has your context convinced you is simply the way things are? What walls have become so entrenched that you have stopped imagining them torn down? What inequalities have become so embedded that you have forgotten they are not inevitable?

The Spirit wants to reclaim our imaginations. And what the Spirit imagines, the Spirit can bring to pass.

In the next part: Kingdom imagination and despair.

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Lent and Ramadan overlap this year — a coincidence that happens only once every few decades. Millions of people around the world are fasting, practising a discipline of restraint in pursuit of closeness to God. A practice of emptying, of humbling, of confessing errors. Of acknowledging that we are not self-sufficient — that we are reliant on God. Of asking, honestly, where we have fallen short, and how we might love God and our neighbours more faithfully.

In those same days, the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran. The Americans named the operation Epic Fury, while the Israelis named it Roaring Lion. The White House website described the strikes as “unleashing overwhelming force… delivering crushing, devastating hits to eliminate the threat of the Iranian regime once and for all… highlighting the sheer dominance of America’s military.”

I have been sitting with those two things side by side: fasting and war. Fury and humbling. Dominance and emptying. Unleashing and restraint.

Meanwhile, images arrive on the news. An Iranian girls’ school bombed in Minab, fresh graves dug for the victims. Families fleeing their homes at night in Lebanon. Parents unable to feed their children in Gaza as the siege tightens. Teenage siblings killed by a strike in Beit Shemesh.

What does it mean to fast in a moment such as this?

Jesus, who himself fasted for forty days in the wilderness, embodied a power that moves in the opposite direction to the one we see on display in the names of these operations. His was not a power that accumulates or violently dominates. It was a power that emptied itself. As it is described in Philippians 2:7: He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. The Greek word is kenosis — a pouring out, a voluntary relinquishing (John 10:18).

This is the logic at the heart of the Christian faith, and it is the logic at the heart of fasting. We fast because we follow a Lord who did not grasp. Who did not unleash overwhelming force to secure his own survival. Whose power was made perfect in weakness, whose victory came through a cross rather than a sword (Matthew 26:52).

Fasting, then, is a confession of allegiance to Christ. It is practising, in small and bodily ways, the kenosis logic of Christ — choosing restraint over consumption, humility over dominance, dependence over self-sufficiency, love over control.

The prophet Isaiah describes the fast God requires of us:

Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your home — and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

This is fasting as the love of God and neighbour made concrete. The self-examination that fasting invites is not simply private introspection — it is the question of whether we have turned away from our own flesh and blood. Whether our emptying before God has made us more loving to others, or whether we have kept ourselves isolated and secluded, undisturbed by the suffering of those around us.

Not to turn away from our own flesh and blood. The children in Minab are our flesh and blood. The displaced in Lebanon are our flesh and blood. The people of Gaza are our flesh and blood. The families in Beit Shemesh are our flesh and blood. Isaiah makes it clear: to fast and not care for our neighbours makes our fast obsolete.

May this season of fasting form us in the image of Christ — who emptied himself, who served rather than dominated.

May it deepen our reliance on God, sharpen our self-examination, and deepen our love for our neighbours.

And may the God who hears the cry of the hungry and the oppressed hear the cries rising from our region — and bring an end to the bloodshed.

This is the first in a four-part series drawn from a talk delivered at the Justice Conference Asia 2025. It draws on Acts 2 — the story of Pentecost — and argues that Kingdom imagination is not a luxury or an escape, but one of the most urgent tools available to those who seek to follow Christ in contexts of injustice. It also draws on a chapter contributed to The Cross and The Olive Tree.

In a world as violent and as unstable as ours, I confess that it is easy to slip into a crushing sense of despair — to feel that there will always be more violence, that nothing I or my community does will make a change. For us Palestinians, this feeling is especially acute: Our homeland has been marked by bloodshed, segregation, and displacement for decades. We have been living through what we call the Nakba — catastrophe — for almost eighty years. Our most urgent wound is Gaza, where two years of unabated mass killing left hundreds of thousands bereaved, wounded, and displaced, and the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. The recent ceasefire has merely slowed the rate of killing. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, settler violence continues, displacing entire families and communities, and restrictions on everyday movement become more and more severe.

To speak of imagination in such conditions might feel absurd. It might feel like a luxury we do not have, or a form of escapism that risks trivialising the weight of the present moment. But I want to suggest that it is precisely in this valley — where oppression seeks to crush every spark of hope — that imagination is most necessary and urgent. That imagination can be a central tool in our quest to live as Christ’s followers and co-builders of the kingdom.

To anchor this, I want to situate us in the context of Acts 2.

For three years, Jesus had taught the disciples about the Kingdom of God — not a kingdom built on conquest and oppression like the Roman Empire, but God’s upside-down Kingdom. A kingdom where the first become last and the last become first (Matthew 20:16); where the meek inherit the earth (Matthew 5:4); where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female (Galatians 3:28). Jesus’ mother Mary, the young woman living under Roman occupation, had sung about this Kingdom: the mighty cast down from their thrones, the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled with good things (Luke 1:51-53).

Jesus taught the disciples about the Kingdom not just in parables and sermons, but through his actions. He showed them what it looked like when the Kingdom broke into the world: the blind received sight, the deaf heard, the dead were raised, and good news was proclaimed to the poor (Luke 7:22). He showed them the Kingdom when he declared that the widow’s two copper coins were worth more than all the offerings of the wealthy (Mark 12:41-44). He showed them the Kingdom when he stopped to heal the bleeding woman, insisting on restoring not just her body but her social standing (Mark 5:25-34). Throughout his ministry, Jesus was preparing his disciples to be builders of that Kingdom.

And then, on the cross, Jesus defeated sin and evil; and in the empty tomb declared that death does not have the final word. He launched God’s reign and restoration — a restoration that will reach its completion in the future when all things are made new (Revelation 21:5). This is what we mean when we say God’s kingdom is both here and not yet: the kingdom has been ushered in, and God’s renewing power is at work in the world substantially but partially (Luke 17:20-21; Hebrews 11:1). We groan with creation as we experience the consequences of sin and death (Romans 8:22), and we eagerly await God’s complete renewal. And so we do not wait passively — we are called to be co-labourers, partnering with God in building the Kingdom (1 Corinthians 3:9).

Yet even after three years accompanying Jesus, the disciples still misunderstood the nature of his kingdom. Acts 1 tells us that Jesus was appearing to them for forty days after the resurrection, teaching them about the Kingdom — but they were still thinking in empire terms, in concepts of military might and nationalist borders. They asked him: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Jesus redirects them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

He ascends, and they are left to wait. For ten days they wait in the upper room in Jerusalem — praying, spending time in fellowship with one another, not exactly sure what they are waiting for.

Then, on the tenth day, the Spirit of God breaks in:

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.

These disciples catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. They begin speaking in languages they have never learned, declaring God’s mighty works to people from every corner of the known world — Parthians, Medes, Arabs, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia and Egypt. People who had never been able to understand each other suddenly hearing about God’s works in their own tongues.

Rome had built something entirely opposite: it had divided people by language, separated them by class, religion, and ethnicity, and ranked them by citizenship status. Rome was an empire built on hierarchy, control, and othering — on the idea that some people matter more than others.

But the Spirit of God breaks in and shatters all of it. When the Spirit was poured out, the disciples were gifted with a new imagination. They glimpsed the Kingdom of God: where the old and the young receive visions and dream dreams; where women and men, enslaved and free, all prophesy and speak with power. No hierarchy, no supremacy, no sexism, no ageism.

And notice this detail: the Spirit did not give everyone the same language. The Spirit did not seek to erase difference, to flatten cultures and identities. Everyone was being spoken to in their own language — and that diversity brought understanding and harmony rather than strife and conflict. The Kingdom of God celebrates diversity; it does not suffocate it. The language of God’s Kingdom is unity in diversity, not uniformity through assimilation.

As Palestinian theologian Jeries Khoury observes, “hearing the good news in one’s mother tongue is not merely a matter of words whose meanings can be found in a dictionary. It is much deeper than that. It relates to the intellectual and cultural structures in which a person has been raised; to the responsibilities one carries; to the kinds of concerns that shape our lives.” The Spirit speaks to people not by stripping them of their histories and identities, but by meeting them within them.

This is Kingdom imagination at work. It is the bridge between the here and the not yet — between our present struggles and God’s future Kingdom. The prophets of the Old Testament offered this to God’s people across the ages: Isaiah’s vision of swords beaten into ploughshares (Isaiah 2:4), Amos’s declaration of justice rolling down like waters (Amos 4:24). These are acts of imagination that transcend the present to anticipate God’s promised restoration. The disciples got a glimpse of what is coming.

The same Spirit that was poured out on the disciples lives in us as followers of Christ. It is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. It is the Spirit that can fill us with a Kingdom imagination to guide our pursuit of justice, mercy, and humility before God.

The next part takes up the first of three gifts Kingdom imagination offers: the reclaiming of what is possible.

This prayer was originally shared in a webinar for the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice shortly after the eruption of war in October 2023.

God our Lord,
We come to you in this darkness,
Hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed;
Persecuted, but not abandoned;
Struck down, but not destroyed;
Because we carry your Sumud in our souls.

God of resurrection,
Death is around us,
Lurks in the corner, threatens our loved ones.
Our Saturday is long and dark,
And the suffering feels unbearable and endless.
In faith, albeit broken, we declare:
You have defeated death. Sunday is coming.
We believe, help our unbelief.

God who knows sorrow, and is acquainted with the deepest grief,
Hold us near while we weep,
Embrace us while we mourn.
Help us feel your tears blend with ours,
Our friend who sticks closer than a brother.

God who walked our land proclaiming the good news of the kingdom,
Walk among the white body bags in Gaza,
Hug those leaning over them, crying for divine mercy.
Sit with our children shaking with terror,
Cover their ears from the sound of bombs raining down.
Wander the corridors of our hospitals, overwhelmed with the injured,
Strengthen the minds and bodies of our doctors struggling with grief and exhaustion.

God who lifts our burdens,
Lift the rubble and rescue those underneath,
With your mighty hand bring them from the edge of death back to life.
Clear the air from the smell of burning,
Infuse our land with your fragrance of salvation.

God who feeds the hungry,
Protect the bakeries, and those waiting in line to feed their families.
As you multiplied the widow’s oil,
With your miraculous hand feed the people of Gaza.
Lift the siege, cease the fire, rain bread down from the heavens.

God who flipped tables,
As we encounter selective empathy in those who claim to carry your name,
As we hear that our lives matter less than others,
As we witness people’s apathy to our death,
Sanctify our anger and let it not turn into bitterness.
Help us confront these lies with truth, love and kindness often not shown to us.

God of compassion,
Do not allow the violence we witness to harden our hearts,
To desensitise us to the sight of a father mourning his child,
Or homes reduced to rubbles in the blink of an eye.
Protect our minds as we witness the brutality our kin endure on screens,
Remind us that you have made them, and us, to thrive, to live, to love.
Keep our hearts soft,
Breaking for what breaks yours.

God who knit us in our mother’s womb,
As we see the children of Gaza write their names on their arms,
Preparing for a death too soon,
Remind us that you have inscribed their names on the palm of your hand,
That you created their innermost being.

God who has brought down rulers from their throne and lifted the humble,
As the powerful sow hatred and encourage the bloodshed,
As rulers issue meaningless statements and speak hollow words,
Remind us that you are above all authority,
That righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

God who is patient,
Hold us near while we question,
while we struggle,
while we search for you in the rubble.

God of light,
As the darkness threatens to overwhelm,
Shine in us and through us.

God of life,
As we watch our world crumble around us,
As we experience heartbreak and disappointment,
Foster in us a divine imagination,
One that can see the wall come down,
One that can see the siege lifted,
One that can still believe of a life abundant.

We repeat, as the prophet Habakkuk declared:
“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

This piece was originally delivered as a Lent reflection in February 2026 for the Sabeel Center. It draws on Matthew 4:1–11 — the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness — and asks what his refusal to bypass vulnerability means for those of us who follow him, and for those whose vulnerability is not chosen but imposed.

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

— Matthew 4:1–11

This narrative is told in three of the four gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — and in each account it comes immediately after Jesus’ baptism. When Jesus is in the water, the heavens open, a voice declares: This is my beloved son. It is a public affirmation that Jesus is the awaited Messiah — a big declaration, the launch of Jesus’ public ministry — but then he is led into the wilderness. It feels anticlimactic, countering our expectations. Usually, after a big event, one needs to ride the wave, use the momentum. Yet Jesus retreats to the wilderness, fasting for forty days, becoming hungry and exposed. And there, in that place of vulnerability, he is confronted by Satan.

We have often treated this narrative as a kind of spiritual how-to manual: when tempted, recite scripture; when attacked, stand firm. But if we leave it there — if we reduce this passage to an individualized guide on how to resist personal temptation — we miss the larger picture. This is not simply about private morality. It is about what kind of Messiah Jesus will be. It is about what kind of power God exercises. It is about the insistence of God on the incarnation, on human vulnerability, on identifying with the hungry and the destitute. It is about the difference between empires and God’s kingdom.

Jesus’ baptism names him as the Beloved Son, and the wilderness asks: what does beloved power look like? Does it look like spectacle and superiority? Or does it look like solidarity?

“After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” The passage names the condition in which Jesus enters this confrontation. He was hungry, vulnerable, and human. The incarnation is not suspended in the wilderness — it is intensified. And that is what the devil attacks.

Notice how the devil begins: “If you are the Son of God.” The declaration at the river is an affirmation, a gift — this is my beloved Son; while here in the wilderness, the devil demands proof — if you are the Son of God. And how was Jesus supposed to prove it? By refusing vulnerability. By insulating himself from human fragility.

I have thought a lot about what these temptations have in common, and I think it is that, in all three, the devil is tempting Jesus to use his divinity in a way that bypasses his humanity. He is tempting Jesus to reject the incarnation. To escape hunger, to escape risk, and ultimately to escape the wounds of the cross. To avoid being truly Emmanuel, God with us.

The first temptation: “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus is hungry — not metaphorically, but physically. After forty days of fasting, his body is weak. And the temptation is logical: if you are the Son of God, why remain in hunger? Why dwell in humanity’s limitations? Why remain bound by bodily constrictions? This reminds me of the dialogue at the cross, where one of the crucified beside Jesus says: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

On the surface, it seems harmless. Jesus is hungry, and bread is a good thing — we see Jesus later feeding multitudes, so it is not out of the question. But what is being suggested is deeper, more sinister. It is an invitation to step out of the incarnation, out of Jesus’ solidarity with the hungry. If Jesus feeds himself at that moment, he no longer shares the condition of those who cannot. He becomes a different kind of Messiah — one insulated from the fragility of human bodies.

In Palestine, this is not an abstract issue. Hunger is real — or more accurately, starvation is real. In the last two years we have watched our kin in Gaza starve, deprived of the most basic sustenance. We have prayed for God to turn stones to bread, to rain manna from the heavens. So this text cannot be read carelessly. We must wrestle with it. Is God indifferent to our bodily needs? Is God indifferent to starvation?

One key that helps us here is that Jesus is not rejecting bread. What Jesus is rejecting is the use of divine power for self-preservation or for spectacle — to shield himself from the vulnerability he chose to enter. When Jesus later fed the crowd (as recorded in John 6), they wanted to crown him king, and Jesus retreated again to the mountain. We know that to control resources is to control people — this is a classic mechanism of domination by occupation forces. Hunger is political: to control food is to control people. So Jesus is saying: I will feed people, but not to enthrone myself. Not as a means of domination. Food will be a gift freely given, not a tool of coercion. “One does not live by bread alone” is not spiritual escapism — it is a refusal of a system that controls bodies through scarcity.

The second temptation takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. He will command his angels concerning you.”

Scholars note that the pinnacle of the temple was used as a trumpeting area — where priests would blow a horn to announce prayer times and religious holidays. This was an invitation to grasp attention. To capture people’s eyes. Throw yourself and show everyone that you cannot be harmed. Again, the issue is vulnerability: prove that you cannot be injured, that your body cannot be broken. Display divine protection as spectacle, as show.

In a world where religion is conscripted into nationalist projects, where theology is weaponised to legitimize domination, Jesus refuses to turn faith into propaganda. He refuses a theology of spectacle. God will not be displayed in a dramatic leap from the temple heights. God will be revealed among the poor, the displaced, the crucified. Christ will not prove his identity by distancing himself from the injury of being human, but by subjecting himself to it.

Jesus refuses, answering: “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” He insists on the scandal of the incarnation: God is to be found among the least of these.

The final temptation is even more explicit. “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’”

Here, the offer is sovereignty without suffering, authority without the cross. This is naked imperial seduction.

If the first temptation targeted bodily hunger, and the second bodily safety, this one targets the entire trajectory of Jesus’ mission. Why endure rejection, persecution, and crucifixion? Why dwell among humanity, walk the slow path of love, when you can seize power now by bowing to the powers and principalities? To accept that is to align with the very logic Jesus came to undermine. It is to reject his identity as Emmanuel, God with us.

Jesus refuses: “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” He rejects a path that bypasses the cross. Palestinian theologian Jeries Khoury reminds us: “God is not among the kings, but in the villages, the rough roads, and the refugee camps — where justice can shine like the sun.” Jesus chooses a kingdom built through sacrifice and love, a kingdom that does not mirror empires — one that is like a mustard seed, small and hidden in the soil; a kingdom like a woman who kneads yeast into dough; a kingdom like a hidden treasure, a precious jewel.

Taken together, these three temptations are about the shape of Jesus’ power: it is not a power that controls, coerces, and dominates, but one that is vulnerable, sacrificial, and loving. Each temptation offered a shortcut, a bypass around the incarnation. Jesus refused, establishing instead a kingdom not of this world.

Jesus did not shy away from vulnerability. He did not use divine power to distance himself from human fragility. He remained Emmanuel. He remained with us — hungry, exposed, subject to rejection, ridicule, and ultimately, violence. And in doing so, he showed us what it means to be truly human.

Because the temptation to escape vulnerability is not unique to Christ. It is woven into the logic of our world. We are taught to protect ourselves first. To secure our own bread before worrying about another’s hunger. To align ourselves with strength. To avoid risk. To remain comfortable, insulated, distant.

But the incarnation tells another story. God does not remain insulated. God does not hover above suffering. God enters it. God is the first to practice costly solidarity. And if we follow Christ, we cannot build lives — or churches — structured around avoiding vulnerability at all costs.

We are not Jesus, so this is not a direct parallel. We are not both divine and human. But I think there is a call for us here. Jesus’ refusal in the wilderness is an invitation: do not use whatever power you have to shield yourself from the suffering of others. Do not turn faith into spectacle. Do not grasp for influence by mirroring the very systems you are trying to change.

The prophet Isaiah asks what kind of fast God desires:

“Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of injustice, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your home, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

In the context of Palestine, these words are more relevant than ever. In Gaza, Palestinians are still living in flimsy tents that cannot withstand the cold or the heat. Food is still scarce, and people are still being bombed. In the West Bank, entire communities are being displaced through settler violence and state policies. Daily constrictions and threats are making life unbearable. The temptation for the church is to look away. To distance. To spiritualise. To shield itself from the pain. To speak of peace without confronting injustice.

But Jesus did not bypass hunger. He entered it. He did not bypass injury. He endured it. He did not bypass the cross. He carried it.

So, this Lenten season, perhaps the question is not only what will I give up, but whose vulnerability will I refuse to look away from? Whose hunger will I allow to move me? Where am I tempted to choose comfort over costly solidarity?

We begin Lent marked with ashes. Dust on our foreheads. A reminder that we are fragile, finite, dependent. But dust is not defeat. Dust is where God has chosen to dwell. If Christ did not despise vulnerability — if he did not escape it — then perhaps our calling is not to escape it either, but to inhabit it with courage and love. To draw near to those whose bodies bear the weight of injustice. To practice a fast that feeds. To practice a faith that refuses spectacle. To practice a discipleship that does not bow to empire.

In the wilderness, Jesus chose to remain Emmanuel. May we choose — in our own finite, imperfect way — to remain with him there.