We hear it every Christmas time but hope and history won't rhyme
Peace on earth
Those words were written by U2 in response, as far as I understand, to the Omagh bomb in 1998. They were a recognition that in the midst of a fragile peace process, violence and prejudice were never far away. Fourteen years on, at Christmas time, we seem to be witnessing once again the failure of hope and history to rhyme with each other.
What is it that we are really witnessing this week, I wonder? I have had discussions about the protests and violence of this week with friends online and in the flesh. I have heard endless radio phone in shows trying to find out what is really going on out there. I have been told that it is a lack of leadership, and yet every politician I have heard claims to be exercising real leadership. I have been told that it is a crisis of identity and yet nobody could possibly miss the fact that the protestors on our streets very strongly identify themselves as British. I have been told that the church has to take some responsibility for walking away from loyalist areas from the 1970s onwards and leaving them without the hope of the gospel. To a large degree I sympathise with that view.
What do I see as I watch the news from our land and how does what I see make me feel?
I see lost people. Politicians lost for a way to exercise any real influence on society and lost for a way to genuinely seek a shared future. Ordinary people from working class loyalist areas lost for a way to make themselves heard and so taking the opportunity to express themselves in ways that are unacceptable in a democratic society. People who would be lost for an identity if their Britishness was taken away from them. And yes, I see church leaders lost for a way to reach out with the gospel of redeeming grace into our communities at the one time of year when God's amazing and indescribable gift of grace should be inspiring our every thought, deed and word.
And how does it make me feel? Like Naomi Long, I feel heartbroken for my country. But I also feel angry at the ways in which we still try to manipulate human beings and their emotions in order to score points against our political opponents. Let me be clear. There are people in positions of responsibility on all sides who have acted irresponsibly this week and that makes me deeply angry.
But then I feel guilty. I feel guilty because I am part of this society and have been for 40 years. What have I done to make things better for those who are deprived of opportunities, deprived of a voice, deprived of an identity, deprived of the assurance that they are valued and loved? I have been given the enormous opportunity of being a child of God. My voice is heard in the throne room of the King of Kings. My identity in Christ is an identity that can never be threatened by any external act. I am valued at the cost of the cross and loved beyond my wildest imagination. Have I shared that? Have you?
I will pray for my country. I will pray for those Christian leaders genuinely reaching out to these socially isolated and desperate communities. I hope you will too. Let's not just sit back and blame the politicians for a lack of leadership without considering what we can do. Let's approach the King of Kings, who alone deserves our total allegiance and, if we are serious about that allegiance, let's answer his call to be salt and light in our land. Only in that way will the hope of the gospel and the history of our wee country be found to be in harmony with each other.
