Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I was afraid to go
to church. On Friday afternoon, there was
a car bombing in the Ashrafieh neighborhood of Beirut. It contained 30 TNT and was meant to kill the
top internal security official Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan. Hasan was killed along with 4-8 others while
over 100 were severely wounded. The
exact number of the dead is not yet known because body parts were found and
they have not all been identified and pieced back together again. Lebanon has a history of political
assassinations and is famous for this particularly vile method of getting rid
of someone--blowing up many innocent civilians in addition to their target. Immediately after the bombing, politicians,
religious leaders and news anchors began to speculate about who was responsible
for the bombing. Many blame the Syrian
regime for the assassination because Hasan strongly opposed Assad. Blame is also pointed at the Lebanese Prime Minister,
Najib Mikati, who is now being pressured to resign.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday after the bombing, the normally
chaotic streets of Beirut were empty and eerily quiet. We were told to stay in the building. The funeral of the murdered security official
was planned for Sunday afternoon at 2pm in the huge Hariri mosque in downtown
Beirut. Huge crowds of thousands were
expected to attend the funeral and fill the downtown. Everyone feared that the funeral would become
another occasion for chaos and violence.
On Sunday morning, my friends and I were torn between our deep longing
to go to church and sit and pray with the community of believers and our fear
of the predicted demonstrations. We asked a trusted adult if it was safe to go
and he told us that it was safe as long as we went back home right after church
in order to miss the crowds that
would begin to gather in downtown.
We got
into the taxi at 9:30am and the streets were empty. The normal road that we would take to go to
the church was blocked off by a huge army tank and soldiers who directed us to follow
the line of cars past blocked street after blocked street. We had to make a huge circle
out of our way in order to get around all the blocked streets and to our
destination. On the way we saw the
results of the previous night’s violence.
All the trash bins were flipped over and left blackened by the fires
that had been lit inside them. Ashes,
trash and burnt tires covered the streets.
A drive that would normally take 10 minutes became 45 minutes.
But we arrived to the church safely and just in time for the
sermon. I won’t be able to explain it
with words but church was something different for me yesterday. The building was the same, the hymns were the
same, the people were the same (though dramatically fewer than usual) and there
was nothing spectacular about the sermon.
But something was different. There
was a feeling hanging in the air. Each person
had arrived to say, “I will come. I will
not cease in song. I will not cease in
prayer. I will not cease in trust. God is good.
God is good. God is good.”
Reverence.
Sanctuary.
Still, my words fail to describe yesterday morning. Humility?
Yes, there was a humbleness in the face of this profound reminder that
the days are so vastly out of our control.
That our capacity for understanding cannot begin to unravel His
mysteries. Our logic cannot make sense
of this world. Together, we were struck
by one of those intense boundless moments in which a human being can accept how
incredibly small he is and how incredible and single is his need for God. For our Lord who knows us and knows all, from
the beginning to the end. There was
something about yesterday morning. We
did not only bow our heads, we bowed our hearts as well. But we were not scared. We were so calm.
On the way home after church we saw the groups of young men
walking towards the downtown. Each group
carried different flags and wrapped different colored scarves around their heads
to show their political or religious affiliations. They had that look in their eyes. That wild hunger for meaning, for something
to direct their anger at.
We arrived home. Some
of my other friends had gone to different churches. One friend told me that the church she went
to only had 7 people there that morning.
My other friend went to a church in the downtown and there were only 17
people. The pastor played the piano for
the hymns because the musicians could not come.
Please continue to pray for Syria and Lebanon. And I ask also that you take some time to ask
yourself how your relationship to God and church might change if you could not
go to church for security reasons? How would
that change the significance and meaning of the building, the community and the
spirit that is church?
