Monthly Thought

Dean Nick's Monthly Message

Dean NIck

Dean Nick says:

This month, Dean Nick shares his reflections as we think about Easter, and what hope might be for those in war torn countries “We will all die”.

Those were the words of the taxi driver who drove me from the airport into central Beirut in October last year. I had asked him what he thought the future held for the Lebanese people.

Perhaps I should have expected a blunt response. An uneasy peace has prevailed in Lebanon since the end of its bloody civil war in 1990. But this was put under immense pressure by the outward ripples of the financial crisis of 2008, and by the explosion in the port of Beirut which ripped the city apart in 2020. Its economy badly mismanaged; its politics corrupt and ineffective; swathes of its territory controlled by Hezbollah: it is difficult for the Lebanese people to be hopeful, and it is difficult to be hopeful for them.

I remembered my taxi driver’s words when – still in the depths of this cruellest of all seasons of Lent – I began to think about writing this Easter letter. President Putin attacked Ukraine barely one week after Ash Wednesday, and many of us have found it impossible to think of anything but the suffering of the Ukrainians ever since. Their cities under siege; their neighbours forced to flee; their children taking up arms: it is difficult to be hopeful for them.

Of course, in both Lebanon and in Ukraine glimpses of hope are clearly visible. In Beirut the streets are full as people meet, drink the best coffee in the Levant, eat kebabs, converse, and go about their business. The graffiti is poignant: Martyr’s Square contains portraits of the 200+ citizens who were killed in the 2020 blast, bearing the hashtag ‘They Matter’. We hear similar stories from the cellars and trenches of Kyiv and from Ukraine’s other cities, stories of great courage and great compassion. Faced with desperate odds men and women retain their humanity; they dig deep and discover the resilience that they need to help them survive.

But these are only glimpses. What about secure and lasting hope for Lebanon, for Ukraine, for South Sudan, for Syria? Contrary to my taxi driver’s fatalistic resignation the Easter hope promises that “We will not all die, but we will be changed”. Where is that hope to be found in these acutely distressed corners of our world?

I have no answer. All I can do is read the Easter story again. All I can do is remember that on Palm Sunday the disciples of Jesus surely had no thought whatever of his imminent arrest and trial. All I can do is remember that on Good Friday they surely had no thought whatever of the future of their mission – no thought at all beyond the cold, solid certainties of his deadly wounds and the rock-hewn tomb. All I can do is remember that on the first Easter morning their earth-shattering realization that Jesus lived must have been beyond description – a new reality that none of them had imagine or foreseen.

I think that’s what hope looks like - this Lent. +Nick.

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