FROM TRAGEDY TO ATROCITY: Standing with the Church in Gaza and Lebanon

On 9 October 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was “at war” after Hamas sent dozens of its fighters into Israel in one of the deadliest attacks in decades.  “We are at war. Not an ‘operation,’ not a ‘round,’ but at war,” Netanyahu said, adding that “the enemy will pay an unprecedented price”.

One year later and Gaza has been destroyed. What Israel set out to do on 9 October 2023 has been fully accomplished.  More than 41,000 people have now died as a direct result of Israel’s indiscriminate bombings and an estimated 186,000 Gazans died due to starvation and lack of healthcare.  80% of all commercial facilities have been damaged.  68% of fertile cropland exists no more and 65% of all livestock have been killed.  The infrastructure, hospitals, and schools are destroyed and life in Gaza, for all practical purposes, has ceased to exist.  Life has been squeezed out of those who call Gaza home and any hopes and dreams for the future were systematically exterminated.  This while every moment has been live-streamed across the globe with a Church watching, mostly, in silence.

May God have mercy.

Lebanon is next.  More than 2,000 Lebanese have now been killed and more than 1.2 million civilians in Lebanon have been driven from their homes since Israel escalated its strikes in late September.  Winter is approaching fast and yet another nation is at the point of being annihilated.  Terror knows no limits.  It has an appetite that cannot be satisfied.

For followers of Christ, it is important to discern between tragedy and atrocity. In tragedy, there are always lessons to learn.  The lessons learned to some degree balance the price that is paid for such knowledge.  Atrocity, however, offers no such possibility and thus no inner space to bury the event. At most, it leaves those left behind searching the rubble of despair to find some meaning to an event of such magnitude that it defies our very sense of meaning.

What transpired in Gaza, and now Lebanon, is not a tragedy to mourn, but an atrocity to expose.

The hope we have, however, is that God is present both in tragedy and in atrocity.  The tragedy of the victims and the atrocity of the aggressors are both instruments in the hands of God that can lead to a space of redemption.

How we respond, however, is different.  The only key needed for God to fulfill His purposes during a time of tragedy is hope.  Hope in a sovereign God who can use all things to work together for good for those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28).  Hope is an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain and gives us a glimpse into a new future. (Hebrews 6:19).  Tragedy opens hearts for redemption to penetrate.

But hope is a rare commodity when faced with the atrocities of war.  Hope seems to allude those who need it most.  For Gazans, and the more than 1 million children who now need mental health and psycho-social support, a year of perpetual bombings has brought a despair so deep, that even faith seems to have evaporated in the rubble of dreams for a better future.

When tragedy turns into atrocity, hope needs to be replaced with solidarity.

So, how do we respond, as Christians, in times of atrocities and a season where evil has been normalised – even justified and supported?  For many the answer is obvious; we need to stand UP and speak OUT.  Scripture, however, has a different solution; we need to speak UP and stand WITH.

Consider the following:

• Proverbs 31:8-9 “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
• Isaiah 1:17  “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
• Galatians 6:2  “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”
• Psalm 82:3-4  “Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

Standing with a nation is commendable.  Standing with the body of Christ is non-negotiable.  Our priority within a Christian mandate is to embrace the principle that we, as the body of Christ, should have equal concern for each other and if one part suffers, every part suffers with it.  (1 Corinthians 12:25-27)

To share pain is not an option.  It is not even a command.  It is simply natural.  In 1 Corinthians 12:26 ^[1] we find the comparison of a physical body to a spiritual entity, and we are informed, not instructed, that our anguish is non-negotiable.  If you don’t share the pain, you are either not part of the body or you have a disease called spiritual leprosy. 

SPIRITUAL LEPROSY 

In our physical bodies, our nervous system responds to pain by sending impulses to and from the brain at a speed of  274 km/h.  Within a fraction of a second pain is communicated from one member and the whole body suffers with the member in pain.  Without the nervous system, pain is not communicated and there is no response from the healthy parts.  This eventually results in Leprosy

Leprosy happens when pain is not shared.  Spiritual leprosy happens when the pain of suffering believers is not shared – when we accept that it is normal for the Church in Gaza to be bombed and Christians in Beirut to be under attack.  It happens when the sight of the suffering and the acceptance of hardship doesn’t break our hearts anymore.  It happens when the nervous system of the church dies and prevents the “healthy” members from intervening as needed.  Spiritual leprosy will ultimately result in Spiritual death.  Without anguish, the Church will lose its mandate and will eventually die.

BUT there is a second disease that develops once we lose the ability to feel pain.  Once we become immune to the warning signs of decay, our immune system deteriorates, and we become victims of AIDS.

SPIRITUAL AIDS

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a set of symptoms and infections resulting from damage to the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumours. ^[2]

Once we become immune to a broken world, we become susceptible to “opportunistic infections”.  Not feeling the sharp pain of anguish when we see the destruction in Gaza has the potential to develop into an AIDS epidemic within the Christian Church.  Why?  Not only because it nullifies the cross but specifically because it nullifies the broken heart of Christ.  It makes the Church susceptible to a deficient immune system and then the body… dies.

In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, He asked that His followers demonstrate solidarity to the world: “I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me” (John 17:21, NLT). Our solidarity and love for each other demonstrate God’s love for the world. Christian solidarity should arise from our adherence to Jesus’ teachings and the “whole counsel of God”

In this regard, it is time for Christians globally to SPEAK UP AND STAND WITH the church in the Middle East and stop supporting a force so violent that we are witnessing the greatest onslaught on human life of our generation.

Malcolm X once noted that: “If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppression”

This is my small part to STAND WITH.  I hope you join me.

For more information in supporting the Church in Lebanon, please visit: https://dialogos.co.za/project-hope-lebanon/ 

 

[1] 1Corinthians 12:26-27 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.  Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

[2] Wikipedia