By Alayna Carlock and Julia Morrow
I was introduced to St. Oscar Romero years ago through the homily that he delivered on Christmas Eve in 1979- the last time, in fact, that he would preside over the celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. He was speaking to the people of El Salvador during a particularly tumultuous context. The 1979 Salvadoran coup d'état had occurred in October, and the twelve-year Salvadoran Civil War was on the horizon, marked by escalating political violence, social inequality, and widespread repression.
St. Oscar Romero’s life and witness embody the themes of this First Sunday of Advent: justice, vigilance, and hope. Like Jeremiah’s prophecy of a “just shoot” and Jesus’ call to stay awake, his words challenge us to seek Christ among the poor and oppressed, preparing our hearts for God’s kingdom.
“I congratulate you, dear brothers and sisters,” Romero writes in his opening, “not only because it is Christmas but because you are courageous.”
As we reflect on a stable in Bethlehem centuries ago, it is urgent to also turn our faces toward the land of Christ’s birth—a land enduring an ongoing genocide. Jesus himself was a refugee, born in Palestine under Roman occupation. To acknowledge this is not to impose a modern lens but to recognize truths already present in the narrative. These realities resonate deeply today, as Palestinians in Gaza endure unimaginable suffering. Christ’s incarnation carries within it the hope and call to confront systemic injustice, to stand with the marginalized, and to remain steadfast in advocating for their dignity.
The season of Advent itself emerged from a context of both oppression and longing. The Israelites, living under the weight of the Roman Empire, yearned for a Messiah to save them from their oppressors. Into this hopelessness came a young mother in a stable, giving birth to the incarnate Christ. In this moment, God subverted all human expectations of what salvation would look like. Christ’s incarnation embodies this profound hope: that God not only cares for individual suffering but also addresses the systemic injustices of the world. In entering our mess, God reveals a better way—a way that calls us to reconcile with one another as we are reconciled to God.
Romero echoed this hope as he addressed his congregation, reminding them where to find Christ:
“If we want to find the child Jesus today, we shouldn’t contemplate the lovely figures in our nativity scenes. We should look for him among the malnourished children who went to bed tonight without anything to eat. We should look for him among the poor newspaper boys who will sleep tonight on doorsteps, wrapped in their papers.”
These words reverberated in my mind last month as I watched The New York Times election needle, dreading the apparent results. Like many of us, I was horrified as a man whose rhetoric thrives on division, hatred, and greed once again secured widespread religious votes. Exit polls showed that 56% of Catholics, 81% of white evangelicals, and 62% of other Protestants voted for the President-elect. And with that, Romero’s warning feels prescient: “Let us not seek Christ in the opulence of the world or among the idolatries of wealth. Let us not seek him in the struggles for power or among the intrigues of the mighty.”
The disparity between the President-elect’s policies— including his staunchly pro-Israel beliefs—and the liberation at the heart of our Christian faith is staggering. Christianity, at its core, proclaims liberation for the oppressed and solidarity with the marginalized. The American church's complicity in this contradiction is deeply troubling. By overwhelmingly supporting a leader whose policies so flagrantly disregard the dignity and justice of marginalized people, including Palestinians, many Christians have aligned themselves with power rather than the vulnerable. This perpetuates the very systems of oppression that Christ came to dismantle. If the Gospel calls us to love our neighbors and pursue justice for all, then we must reckon with the ways our political choices reflect—or distort—that call.
So, let us seek Jesus not in halls of power but beneath the rubble of Gaza, as Lutheran priest Munther Isaac wrote last Christmas. Let us look for Christ in the Palestinians whose lives have been unjustly stolen. To seek justice for Palestine is to ask the central question: Who is my neighbor? As Christians, if we cannot recognize the suffering of our brothers and sisters thousands of miles away, we fail to fulfill the command to love our neighbor. Yet, the American church largely fails this test today. By standing with the state of Israel (a modern democratic nation that is distinct from the biblical Israel), the church continues to align itself with the oppressor. In doing so, it abandons its own brothers and sisters in Gaza—some of whom shelter in churches, awaiting death at the hands of the state.
In his final remarks, Romero reminds us, “Let us remember the child who was born in a manger and wrapped in cloth so that our poverty, our pain, and our suffering would make sense to us.” Jesus is among the poor, and our compassionate God remains in radical solidarity with humanity, suffering alongside the most vulnerable. Emmanuel—God with us—is with the hungry, the displaced, and the persecuted.
To seek Christ is to seek the liberation of all people, not just those within the boundaries (or rather, idolatries) perpetuated by Christian nationalism. As Romero warned, Christ is not found in the “idolatries of wealth” or the “intrigues of the mighty” but among the poor, the vulnerable, the displaced, and the oppressed. To stand with Palestinians today is to stand with Christ, whose incarnation reveals God’s radical and continuous solidarity with the suffering. Anything less is a betrayal of the very faith that so many American Christians claim to uphold.
This Advent, may we be filled with the divine, incomprehensible compassion of Christ. May we recognize his presence under the rubble and in the cries of the poor because he has always been there. The task is ours: to open our eyes and see him.
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