Madrid: Another Call To Passion
Madrid has never seen an attack like it.
People packed into busy commuter trains, at several of the Spanish city's major stations, were confronted with a horror most of us will hopefully never face.
Nearly 200 people lost their lives and 1400 more were injured in a series of ten bomb blasts. We saw it all over our TV screens that night.
For many Spaniards, Thursday March 11, 2004 will now forever carry echoes of another 11th day, that of September 2001.
Of course, there's no way of measuring the loss of peace of mind, the emotional turmoil that will live on in people's minds for years to come. And it is impossible to gauge the effect on the heart of a nation, which must now live with the reality that it is a target for terror groups, not just of the home-grown variety, but with a brutal global agenda.
At first, nobody was quite sure who was responsible for the devastation. The first reaction of the Spanish government was to blame ETA, the terror group seeking Basque separatism in the north of the country. Like the IRA in the Britain of the 70s and 80s, this group has been blowing things up for years, in pursuit of its own brand of nationalism.
As events unfolded, however, it became clear that the real fault probably lay elsewhere, with the same family of terrorists responsible for the devastation of 9/11.
That day of infamy changed many things.
It changed the way the international community travels, the way people look at high-rise buildings and, for people in nations like Australia - where Bali's bombings brought more devastation - the way people choose their holiday locations.
One consequence of 9/11, for many people, was that it seemed to throw into sharp relief the blandness, the lack of passion with which most of us conduct our daily lives.
Until September 11, ours had been the age of bland. The post-modern age of political correctness produced a generation that has made being inoffensive it's greatest virtue.
Post-modern thinking has taught us that all truths are equally true, that all stories are equally invalid. We have been taught that: 'it's okay to believe that something is true, as long as you don't insist that is the truth of the matter.'
Until 9/11, everyone had been going around trying so hard not to stand on anyone else's toes, to the point of confusing political correctness with truth. The world had been preaching 'blessed are the comfortable', and some of the Christian church had responded with 'comfortable are the blessed'. All this has led to the death of passion.
Yet, in the months that followed September 11, people seemed to be less willing to call everything 'negotiable'. Some things, it seemed, clearly are wrong and evil and worth fighting against. Some things are true and good and worth standing up for, with passion.
I remember asking myself the question at the time: 'What is God saying to the church post 9-11?'
I knew that the God of the Bible didn't instigate the events of 9/11 - and he wasn't behind the events in Madrid. You can't hold the Bible to be true and at the same time believe that God had motivated the hatred that led to these atrocities.
If there is a central statement about God in the Bible, it must surely be this: 'God is love.'
Yet, the Christian message teaches that God always has a word of hope for even the darkest hours in life. The God of the New Testament is able to turn even the ignominy of crucifixion death into glorious resurrection life. He can truly turn any situation around, for our good.
As we ponder the tragedy of Madrid, and reflect back to September 11, what does God want to say to us, and through us to the wider world?
For Christians, there should be at least one major lesson learned from September 11, and reinforced perhaps by events in Spain. The church can no longer afford to present a 'business-as-usual', 'more-of-the-same' face to the world.
In this age of turmoil, we must meet people with a zeal for our God that is at least as great as their passion for their gods -- whatever they may be.
For the church, if for no other group, September 11 surely represented the death of blandness and a call to passion!
The church needs a revival of passionate living and leadership.
Our God is passionate! Old Testament adjectives reveal a God who is anything but the clinical, emotionless (yes, even 'nice') figure the church has sometimes represented him to be. God is a zealous God, given to open displays of emotion over those he loves (see Deut. 4:24, Heb 12:29, Ex 15:3, Is. 59:17, Zeph. 3:17).
His zeal is in not the fanatical, myopic fervour that drives the murderous zealot. It is the joyful, protective zeal of a God who takes pleasure in his work and his people.
Jesus was passionate, too. The gospels reveal anything but a 'nice' or bland Jesus.
Jesus' life and ministry anything but 'business as usual' or 'more of same'.
The novelist Dorothy Sayers has said that: 'The people who hanged Christ never... accused Him of being a bore -- on the contrary; they thought Him too dynamic to be safe... He was emphatically not a dull man in His human lifetime, and if He was God, there can be nothing dull about God either.'
It is this aspect of the real Jesus that people are now rediscovering - sometimes, reluctantly - through the release of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.
What made Jesus submit himself to the cruelty, the horror of such a death? The Bible gives us only one answer: his passion, to do the will of the Father and rescue fallen humanity.
In this post 9-11 world, a world that now recognizes it has a long fight on its hands, Christians must once again show to the world a God who is passion for them. We must demonstrate that living for him is anything but a colourless experience. It is a commitment to live for something bigger than we are, to give ourselves to something that lives on when we die.
How do we rise above bland living and keep our passion alive?
Keeping our passion alive means learning to live with hunger. Nothing kills passion like unresolved frustration.
Frustration is born when our expectation exceeds our experience. It can spring from many sources. It may come from failure on your part. Or from poor performance on the part of other people. It can also come through impatience with God's timetable.
Frustration can also arise when I want in the here-and-now what only heaven can provide.
The gospel worldview is vastly different from others on offer today.
For one thing, Christian truth insists that human beings are eternal beings, that our lives extend way beyond the limits of our time on earth.
That's why Christians have always been at the forefront of the fight to protect the sanctity of life, because they believe that this life is given on loan to us and that we will one day answer for how we've treated it.
Because I was built for eternity, and not just for time, there is a yearning, a hunger within me that can never be satisfied in this life. Because I am built for eternity, this life will always carry certain amount of frustration for me!
I'm not talking about frustration that comes because of my unbelief or disobedience. I'm talking about an expectation of things to come. I can certainly taste heaven in this life! But I can't reproduce it.
In a world where I am encouraged to fill every hunger, to achieve immediate gratification for every need, it is healthy for me to remember that I am 'not of this world'. A certain blessedness comes from staying hungry for things that this world and this life cannot provide.
Pascal wrote that: 'We are never living, but hoping to live; and whilst we are always preparing to be happy, it is certain, we never shall be so, if we aspire to no other happiness than what can be enjoyed in this life.'
In more modern terms, U2 sang: 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for…'
It's a fact: not even the best business deal will leave you feeling totally fulfilled. Not even the best grades in school will make you feel a complete success. Not even the greatest marriage will totally fill your hunger for intimacy.
There's always going to be a drive within you for something more; something greater and more lasting than this life can provide.
If the one the Bible calls 'the devil' can't kill those desires for higher things, he'll try to seduce them. He'll offer you some 'quick fix' way of dealing with those deep soul yearnings. He may even dress the offer in religious words. In the end, though, only heaven will do it!
If you and I can learn to turn that frustration into desperation for God, channelling it into fervent prayer and bigger, bolder faith action, godly passion will be revived and released in us, and his love and healing power will permeate a hurting world.
We cannot bring back the people we lost in Madrid. But we can point others to a God who is passionately for them, not against them. And we can, through this tragedy, remind people that God is calling them to rise above bland living and reach out for his eternal purpose for their lives.
© Mal Fletcher 2004
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