Jesus and the London Bombs
On the morning of July 7th 2005 bombers struck in the heart of London. Three bombs exploded on the London Underground system (the Subway, Metro or what Londoners call 'the Tube') and one exploded on a London double decker bus. Around fifty people died and over 700 were injured. It took a long time for all the dead to be identified or recovered from the underground tunnels through which the trains run.
Many people were interviewed over the following few days regarding this tragedy in London. We too expressed our condolences to the families and friends of those who have died, sent our best wishes to the injured for swift recovery in body, mind and spirit, expressed our admiration for the members of the emergency services for the magnificent job they did, and assured all these of our prayers and concerns.Yet, this web site is about Jesus. What if Jesus was here in bodily form as he was 2000 years ago, perhaps he too would have been interviewed by the press and television. What would he say in the aftermath of such tragedy and blood shed and horror?
My writing skills do not extend to attempting to re-create an imaginary interview verbatim. But the Bible paints a graphic word picture of this Man-who-is-God from which we might reasonably guess at some of the things Jesus would feel and say about this and similar issues.
I believe one of the first things we would notice as we interviewed Jesus would be the...
Tears.
He would be quite unembarrassed to let us see them running down his cheeks. The group who claimed responsibility for the London bombs, doing so in the name "of God, the merciful, the compassionate", have proved that this group at least are neither of these things. By contrast Jesus was, and is, truly compassionate.
The Bible tells us that "Jesus wept" at a funeral (John 11 v 35). True, the funeral was of a friend, but Jesus's tears were not for himself. He already knew how that particular afternoon was going to turn out (read the full account here). His sorrow and the resulting tears were for the family and friends gathered for the funeral. People devastated by their loss. People without hope or comfort.
Jesus's compassion is also evident in the many ways he responds to the needs of those around him. He is not called "the friends of outcasts and sinners" for nothing. See him reach out and touch an 'unclean' leper. Listen as he talks with an immoral woman who draws water from the village well in the middle of the day in order to avoid the rejection and comments of her neigbours. Marvel as he invites himself to the home of a 'little man' hated by the community because his job marked him out as a collaborator and traitor. Watch him give another chance - new hope - to a woman condemned for her sin by her community.
Hope and comfort are themes I believe Jesus would return to before our imaginary interview is over. Yet Jesus weeps today for those devastated by the London bombs, and other personal and national tragedies like it.
Our interview with Jesus would not be many minutes old, however, before we might also sense his...
Anger.
Some believe that anger is an un-Godly, un-Christian, emotion. But reading the pages of the New Testament we discover that Jesus was angry on a number of occasions.
Jesus never got angry over the trivial issues that so often make you and I angry. Jesus reserved his fiercest anger for those hypocrites (literally, 'play actors') whose words do not match up with their actions, especially where those concerned pretended to do so in the name of, or on the behalf of, God.
He would surely have had something to say on the subject of those who perpetrate such horrific actions as the London Bombs in the name of God. As if the tragedy and pain of such events were not enough in themselves, he would have been angered that such events often destroy, or hinder, the development of faith in a God who loves and cares for his creation. It is this God that Jesus came to reveal and demonstrate.
Jesus reserved his greatest criticism for those who made rules which separated the select few from 'the rest'. For those who branded others as "sinners and outcasts", unworthy of, or (so they claimed) unacceptable to, the love of God. On one occasion he made a whip to clear the temple of those who bought and sold there because they were desecrating God's house and making it impossible for so-called 'outsiders' to come inside and worship.
Which might lead Jesus to offer a few...
Warnings.
Tragedy is not a new phenomena. Even in the first century there were natural as well as man-made disasters that took life and destroyed communities. In those days people often thought that being a victim of such an event meant that God had abandoned you. Jesus specifically denied that kind of reasoning.
Jesus himself refers to a disaster in which 18 people died when a construction project collapsed. He links this to an event in which a number of people were brutally murdered and had their sacrifices of worship desecrated with their own blood.
"Do you think that these people were worse sinners than all the others because they suffered this way?" Jesus asked, "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them — do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, No! But unless you repent, you too will all perish" he warns. (Luke 13. NIV)
Disaster does not only fall on the guilty. The good and the religious are not always spared. God has placed us in a creation where we are responsible for the choices we make and the resulting consequences. Some of those consequences may fall on innocent victims. The results of our actions and choices affect other people - both for good and bad.
The truth is that none of us knows how long we have got. We grieve particularly for those who die young. We think it is less than fair if they don't live a long life. But deep down we know there are no guarantees, we have no 'right' to expect to make it to retirement or beyond. Which is why the writer of one of the Psalms (Psalm 90. NIV) asks that we may learn "to number our days aright" for, as another Biblical writer states, "All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return." (Ecclesiastes 3:19-21. NIV).
The Bible takes death and suffering seriously. That is why God entered the world, becoming a man, Jesus, living our life and dying our death. He had created the world entirely good but human-kind has spoilt it by the choices we make and the consequences that follow. So none of us are really 'innocent' victims, which is why Jesus warns us to make our peace with God while we have the opportunity.
We all need the forgiveness of God - and usually, the forgiveness of other people as well. Forgiveness also benefits those who do the forgiving by pulling up the root of bitterness and resentment that begins to grow when we fail to forgive. However justified our grievance may be, without forgiveness, our plans to 'get even' or to 'give them what they deserve' or simply to continuously rehearse our grievance, only come back to destroy us (not them).
All too easily we measure people by our own standards and decide who is 'beyond the pail', too far gone to be worthy of forgiveness. We may even feel we are too far gone ourselves for God to forgive us. Yet as they crucified him, Jesus repeated over and over again 'Father forgive them, Father forgive them'. His whole purpose in coming, Jesus would remind us, was to bring us peace with God, and peace with each other, by his death on the cross.
Which, before our interview is over, I believe might lead Jesus to return to the subject of...
Hope and Comfort.
Remember the funeral Jesus attended? He was moved to tears because of the hopelessness of those around him. It is in this context that Jesus brings hope to his friends, and hope to us too. Martha (the sister of the man who had died) was pleased to see Jesus at the funeral but wished that he might have come in time to heal her brother before he died. When Jesus told her that her brother, Lazarus, would rise again she, being a religious woman, thought he meant that God would raise everyone one day. But Jesus had something else in mind on this occasion. His words are still used 2000 years later in most of our Christian funeral services...
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." (John 11 v 25-26. NIV)
What a hollow claim that would be unless he could proved it to be true! So a few minutes later Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and a few months later, having been condemned, crucified and certified dead himself, he too rose again from the dead! It's the event we call Easter.
Real life is not found in making money, or working hard, or owning lots of things, or in having physical security from those who would blow us up - even though these things are important. Real life is in Jesus. "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" Jesus said, and when this life is over, whether that happens in the peace of our beds or in the noise and fear of a terrorist attack, Jesus is the resurrection and the new life. He promises to prepare a place for us, to welcome us into our heavenly Father's kingdom, where there are no more tears or pain.
Finally...
...our imaginary interview is over. Jesus would leave the media spotlight to comfort those who mourn, to heal the sick, to encourage those who work for peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
He still does.
When Jesus made the claim quoted above he asked one more question of Martha. He asks the same question of us today. "Do you believe this?".
Do we believe that Jesus is the answer to death? That he cares and comforts us in our grief and pain? That he is the source of real life? That he came to bring us peace with God by his own death and teaches us how to live at peace with our neighbour and our enemies?
Our answer can make all the difference between hope and hopelessness. Not just for ourselves, but for our family, our friends and colleagues, and for the person sitting next to us on the bus or the tube.
It's worth thinking about.
Copyright: NIV (New International Version). Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright (c) 1973, 1978, 1984, by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. a member of the Hodder Headline Plc Group. All rights reserved. "NIV" is a registered trademark of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790