The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On . . .
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday
-U2, Sunday Bloody Sunday
David Cameron’s apology last week for the United Kingdom’s role in “Bloody Sunday” allowed us to reflect on the mimetic nature of violence. The statement that violence breeds more violence is almost cliché at this point, but phrases usually become clichés for a reason: They are true.
Apologies can only do so much, of course. They can’t bring back the 14 protesters who were killed that day, nor can they bring back those who were killed in the aftermath of mutually escalating desire for revenge.
The escalating desire for revenge is universal. It’s destructive force impacts national and international politics, but also impacts business, churches, friendships, and families. In our resentment and desire for revenge, few of us are courageous enough to admit wrong-doing and few of us are able to extend a hand of reconciliation.
Which is why I think Cameron’s apology last week was important. Maybe it was just a symbolic gesture, but I’m a firm believer in symbolism. In a world where the story of violence so often dominates our worldview, I find any nonviolent story intriguing because it points to another story, another possibility.
Cameron’s admission of guilt and the subsequent offer of peace and reconciliation, although largely symbolic, was not easy to do. Any admission of misconduct leaves one vulnerable as one risks becoming the object of revenge.
The only solution to the spirit of revenge is the spirit peace and reconciliation. That, I hope, is the spirit in which Cameron made his apology. That spirit is also the victory Jesus won on the cross, and, as U2 suggests, also on Bloody Sunday. Jesus was an innocent victim who was killed by the machine of human violence. Jesus stands in the place occupied by all the victims of human violence. Jesus didn’t just die 2,000 years ago on a Roman cross; he also died with the victims of Bloody Sunday.
To the worldview that glorifies winners, Jesus was a loser, and still is a loser. But for those of us who desire a different story, one of peace and reconciliation, Jesus offers the only solution. To claim the victory Jesus won on the cross is to intentionally live a life of forgiveness and reconciliation: “Father,” Jesus requested as he gasped for air while hanging on his cross, “forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). While we are caught up in the mimetic spell of violence and revenge, few of us really know what we are doing. The only solution to the spirit of mimetic violence is the spirit of intentional forgiveness. That spirit is the hope for a transformed world that is based not on the desire for revenge, but on the desire for reconciliation.
