Thought for the Week - 23rd January 2022

 

Dear Friends,

One of my abiding memories of my time training to be a minister was a visit I made to Israel as part of the Young Adults Study Tour with the Council for Christians and Jews (CCJ). We were able to meet with Jewish settlers and Palestinian students to hear something of their stories which they each faced in life. We visited some of the famous sights, including the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Masada National Park, and the Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, which is dedicated to the memory of the Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War. Holocaust Memorial Day is remembered each year on the 27th January which marks the liberation of the largest of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945, where over a million people were murdered, including over 200,000 children. At Yad Vashem there is a children’s memorial of five candles in a darkened mirrored hall that reflects these lights and symbolises the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust. Each of their names is read out on a recorded loop with their age and place of death and it takes around three months to complete. It truly is sombre and poignant to walk through this monument dedicated to such a huge loss and waste of life and future potential. CCJ has produced materials to help us to remember not just the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, but also other genocides since in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and this year’s theme is titled ‘One Day’. In the Introduction written by James Roberts who is the Christian Programme Manager of CCJ he says, ‘The theme of ‘One Day’ immediately makes me think of hope; that one day, genocide will be no more, and the peace of God will prevail… However, hope is a complex emotion to speak of in relation to the Holocaust, as for many victims the extent of the trauma rendered it hopeless.’ And he reminds us to ‘reach out to remember the victims who were killed in the Holocaust and genocides’, encouraging us ‘to observe ‘One Day of Prayer’ on 27th January; to reach out to God, bringing before Him the memory of the victims of genocide, praying that one day this is no more’. CCJ have produced this prayer for you to use:

Eternal God, you hold all of our days in your hands. On this day, we come before you to remember the victims of the Holocaust. We lament the loss of the six million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust, the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution, and victims of other genocides. May our minds be clear and attentive to their memory and our hearts be moved to bear witness to their lives. Today, help us to remember and recognise the sanctity of each human life, that all people are made in Your image. One day, we pray that genocide and hatred will be no more, and that love will triumph over evil. In our prayers and in our actions, help us to show this love in the world today. Amen.


Grace and peace,


Neil


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