Speech at evening service in Beit Sahour

Check against delivery

Dear Bishop Younan, dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

I am happy and grateful that the Lutheran congregation here at Beit Sahour has invited us to celebrate our Sunday service together this evening.

It is of course joyful for Nordic Lutherans to meet with believers of the same confession here in the Holy Land. However, it is deeply meaningful and an honour, that representatives of other church families are sharing this moment with us.

Today, Western Christendom marks the First Sunday of Lent, while Eastern churches are celebrating their Last Sunday before Lent – the Sunday of Forgiveness.

Knowing that we in a few years probably will have found a common date for Easter for all our churches, let us now once more start preparing ourselves to follow Christ on his path towards the tremendous events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

To me, this Lent’s wandering has already had a very moving start, as I come here directly from the Church of the Nativity.

I greet you with a word from today’s Gospel reading in our own church, the Church of Norway, from St. Matthew 4,10: ”You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve”.

Thank you all for this occasion to gather in the house of the Lord, so close to the places where Christ was born, lived, died and rose again.

Shokran! (thank you)