Dear all,
I write as news of a possible ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is emerging from Qatar. The incoming President of the US, Donald Trump, has claimed the striking of a deal for himself: certainly, his inauguration has loomed large over the parties to the dispute and put pressure on them to come to an agreement. The outgoing President, Joe Biden, might feel that he had a part to play since the deal is apparently the same as that presented to the warring parties last May. In the background, of course, there will have been diplomats and emissaries of any number of interested parties shuttling between representatives of Israel and Hamas, attempting to find some ‘common ground’ on which peace might be built.
Except a ceasefire is not the same as ‘peace’. The BBC’s correspondent, Jeremy Bowen has pointed out that there are over 100 ‘moving parts’ to the deal; there is next to no trust between the parties and the whole deal, even if it is struck, could crash and burn at any moment. No one, either within the Israeli government or in Hamas will get everything that they wish from the deal and there are some, on both sides, who would wish it to fail. This morning, on the radio, a Palestinian spokesman spoke of the need to address the root causes of the decades’ long violence in the Middle East. Without doing so, he said, the presenting symptoms of murderous violence might be addressed but the underlying problem will remain. I’m inclined to agree but suspect that very few people are in the right headspace to want to talk about what might follow the ceasefire, let alone what ‘peace’ might look like.
Which leads me to reflect that we (humanity) have a great capacity for ‘making do and mending’ rather than facing squarely up to big issues. Quick fixes get us only so far. At a domestic level, unless we weed the garden properly our flower beds will be overgrown come the summer. Unless we deal with the source of damp in our properties no amount of paint can cover it up. We may know what needs doing, but may not have the means to pay the cost in time or effort to do a proper job.
As we move from the Christmas and Epiphany seasons toward Lent one message we hear repeatedly in church is the call to ‘repent’. Repentance is frequently misunderstood. Essentially it means to change our ways, to face the fact that we cannot save ourselves (to be honest about this) and to live differently in the light of God’s loving presence. Jesus’ ministry is one of salvation. The Gospel assures us that there is always a way forward through even the most intractable of our difficulties provided we are honest with ourselves, face up to the depths of our problems and seek God’s help to follow His way. All power then to those who seek peace in the Middle East …and may Christ grant us His grace as we seek to follow Him.
Alec