Jumu’ah Al-Hazeeni: When the Past Feels Present
Jumu’ah Al-Hazeeni (جمعه الحزيني)… Good Friday.
In Arabic, Jumu’ah is Friday, the day of gathering and prayer, and Al-Hazeeni comes from sorrow, a deep, honest sadness, so when we say Jumaa Al-Hazeeni we are really saying “the Sorrowful Friday”, and I’ve always felt that the Arabic holds the truth of the day. It lets it be what it is.
As a Palestinian Christian, this day has never felt like something in the past. It always feels like sliding doors, like time is layered and moving alongside us, like what happened then continues to echo and unfold in different ways now. Maybe it is because these are not distant places we are talking about. They are home, they are real, they are places like Nazareth, Jerusalem, Haifa, Akka, Gaza and everything in between, where the story of Christ is something you feel in the ground beneath you. It’s in our DNA. It’s a lesson about human behaviour that keeps repeating itself. The only difference is that today, with technology, we see it for exactly what it is, and it will impact the globe. When we don’t address issues locally that are a result of global power and resource grabbing, it will spread.
When thinking about this day, it’s not only about the crucifixion itself. It’s about what led up to it, about Lent, about those forty days where Jesus withdrew, reflected, fasted, and prepared, because he knew what was coming. There is something incredibly human in that, the awareness that events are going to unfold in a certain way, and still choosing to walk towards them with clarity, purpose, and conviction. Just as we have been advocating for so long, knowing full well that critical events will unfold unless we collectively wake up and stand up against the division to treat every human life as equal.
Jesus stood for something. He challenged power, he spoke truth, he stood with the marginalised, and he did it with a full awareness of the cost. When you look at it through that lens, this is not only a story of faith, it is a story of ethics, of morality, of humanity, of what it means to stand up for people when it is uncomfortable, when it is dangerous, when it asks to look at the sum of the total rather than just yourself. It is the story of one of the greatest revolutionaries, someone who chose humanity over self-preservation, who sacrificed his life in the pursuit of truth, dignity, and justice.
And then there are those final words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” and “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” You can feel both the depth of pain and the depth of compassion at the same time, the questioning, the despair, the surrender, the humanity of it all. He knew there would be pain. He felt it fully. Yet, there was also a deeper knowing that this moment was part of something larger, that injustice does not get the final word.
And there is something else that has always felt significant and never a coincidence, the fact that this day falls on a Friday, the sacred day in Islam, when Muslims gather for Jumu’ah prayer, when mosques fill, when people stand shoulder to shoulder and turn towards God. On this same day, Palestinian Christians are holding the sorrow of the crucifixion, while Palestinian Muslims are gathered in prayer, each in their own way, yet moving within the same rhythm of reflection, surrender, and connection to something far greater than ourselves.
This is a powerful alignment that may get lost on the majority of us out here in the West. But not in Palestine. In its essence, it keeps bringing us back to the same place. And maybe that is part of the deeper message of this day as well, that beyond religion, beyond doctrine, there is a shared human understanding of justice, of compassion, of standing for something greater than the individual.
And maybe that is also why Palestinians, and the broader region, hold onto faith so strongly, regardless of the differences in belief about Christ himself, whether he is seen as the Son of God, a Prophet, resurrected, or not, because the essence of what he stood for resonates way beyond labels and with absolute respect. It speaks to resilience, to dignity, to the refusal to let injustice define the human spirit, even when everything around us feels so uncertain.
Could it also be why this day feels so present, because when you look at what is happening today, in Palestine, in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iran, and the whole region, you can’t ignore the parallels, the injustice, the power, the narratives that do not reflect what people are living on the ground. There is a strong sense, and rightly so, of being gaslighted by the world, of seeing something so clearly and watching it be explained away, diluted or denied in its entirety.
It brings you back to that feeling of sliding doors, where you are not just remembering a story, you are recognising it, you are seeing the same patterns, different time, different names, and a similar human experience of suffering, resilience, and the struggle for truth.
If this day shows us anything, it is that moments of deep darkness can still sit within a larger unfolding, that what feels overwhelming in the present can still be part of something shifting. It does not make the pain easier or make the despair we feel any lighter; it does not remove them, yet it allows space for a more meaningful perspective to exist with it. Even in the heaviness of Jumu’ah Al-Hazeeni, there is a strong belief that justice will prevail, even when it feels buried and so incredibly dark.
This day is not just about looking back. It is about sitting in what is here, feeling it all, and holding onto that knowing with certainty that while things may get harder before they get better, this is not where the story finishes.
جمعة حزينة، الله يعطيكم السلام والصبر