Awaiting earth's eastering

Last week saw the start of Lent, the period of 40 days before Easter when, traditionally Christians commit to prayer, reflection, and expressing God’s love in the community. I was at an Ash Wednesday service in Hilton Church. We left bearing a smudged sign of the cross on our hand, a symbol of our mortality, and our sinfulness.

The week had begun with a stark example of sin and mortality. We heard that 21 Egyptian Christians who’d been captured by Islamic State while in Libya looking for work were led along a Mediterranean beach and beheaded besdie the calm water. It was reported that as they died some of them had the words 'Lord, Jesus Christ' on their lips.

Reflecting on this at a service in Inverness Cathedral on Monday, Father Mel Langille reminded us of Jesus’ prayer for the men who had crucified him: ‘Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.’ Surely, Mel said, these ISIS jihadists must be blind to the enormity of what their actions.

Every week we hear of more unspeakable acts of cruelty carried out by ISIS in the name of Islam. Those carrying out these acts have a religious motivation. Their thinking is shaped by a very literal, fundamentalist understanding of the Koran.

We need to acknowledge the great evils being perpetrated in the name of religion in the Middle East and elsewhere. We say ‘never again’ as we remember the Holocaust.  Yet an equally dark evil is evident in Syria, Libya and Iraq today, targeting Christians and moderate Muslims.

So how should we react? The first thing is not to ‘demonise’ followers of ISIS. They are human beings like us who have somehow come to believe that what they are doing is honouring to the God they know as Allah.

The second thing is to pray that light will break into, and dispel the darkness. Pray for those who are afflicted and held captive; pray for their families; pray for those who are bent on doing evil that their eyes may be opened; pray for those in western Europe who are tempted to join ISIS in Syria; pray for political leaders as they plan appropriate responses; pray for relief agencies and those who work for peace.

And why don’t we befriend, and encourage Muslim people, many of whom are horrified at what is being done in the name of their faith, and feel they are viewed with suspicion in their own communities? What can we do to encourage Muslim leaders in their work of presenting Islam as a religion of peace, co-existing with people of other faiths and none, seeking the good of the community and thus countering the lure of the jihadists’ black-and-white certainties.

And we do not hesitate, at a time when religion is high in the news agenda to highlight the power and uniqueness of the Jesus story. Earlier this month, Professor Donald Macleod of the Free Church of Scotland published an article arguing that Allah is not God. I believe that when Muslims and Christians pray, both pray to the God who is there, who can’t be described in words or captured in doctrines. But as Christians we humbly believe that we have been granted a clearer, sharper vision of the mystery who is God, and it is this vision which shapes our lives.

Young Muslims who leave the UK to join ISIS do so driven by a desire for purpose, for brotherhood, for community for shared goals. They trust that radicalism will fulfil their longing. As Christians we believe that these desires have been placed within us all to draw us to God, to the community of Jesus, to a world-transforming jihad whose weapons are love and grace.

‘Father forgive them,’ Mel quoted. But surely that’s a problem. Would it be right for God to forgive the cruelty and violence which besmirches our humanity? Would forgiveness be unjust? These are questions which have their answer in the death of Jesus. Somehow, we believe, through the death of Jesus, justice has been done, the price of our sinfulness has been paid. And all – this is the glorious scandal of Christianity – all who repent, even of sins done when we knew full well the significance and the implications of what we were doing, all who turn from darkness and let light and love flood their hearts will be forgiven.

For us as Christians, it is as though since the time of Christ the world has been passing through its own Lent, as joy is interspersed with struggle and discipline and prayer, and sadness at the prevalence of darkness. We await earth’s eastering, when a new age will begin, an age of light and love. And this is the story we share.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 26th February 2015)