Gerry Adams’s appearance on Channel 4, in a programme following the footsteps of Jesus in the Holy Land, won’t be screened for a week but it’s already caused a stir. Victor Barker, who lost his son in the Omagh bombing, is aggrieved, on the grounds that it makes the Sinn Fein leader seem like a “genuine, peaceful person”. That’s understandable. Yet there will be lots more people with no connection to the Troubles who simply don’t like the idea of someone with IRA connections talking about Christ at all.
You have to wonder whether they’ve ever come across that remark by the Man Himself, to the effect that he came for sinners, not the righteous.
I disagree with Melanie. Implicit in the statement by Our Lord is the hope and expectation that sinners will know themselves to be such. And seek newness of life. Any politician has a hard furrow to plough, so I cut Gerry Adams some slack here. But there does not seem to be much repentance. Remember, if you will, that the IRA not only planted terrorist bombs in Northern Ireland but also in the UK. Remember that they tried to kill our Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by bombing the hotel that she stayed in during her party conference in Brighton (four died). Children died when a bomb went off outside a McDonalds in Warrington. Bombs were left in London railway stations and in pubs and on buses. Some expression of sorrow might not come amiss, some desire to make amends. Finally, there are grieving families in Northern Ireland whose loved ones were snatched many years ago by the IRA and killed and buried in anonymous graves. They have begged to be told where the graves are. One of them was Sheila McConville, mother of ten children, the youngest aged only six; she was executed by the IRA in December 1972 on false evidence that she had been passing information to British troops. The information that the IRA later gave as to the whereabouts of her body proved to be either false or wrong. Her remains were found by chance in 2003. Gerry Adams – are you listening?
“Implicit in the statement by Our Lord is the hope and expectation that sinners will know themselves to be such. And seek newness of life.” True, but we do not know when. And as such, it’s not on our terms, but on His. We don’t always know what that looks like.
From Adams perspective, this was war, and he was a soldier. I don’t hold that view myself, but I do hope that Jesus will understand my personal view, as well as the view of my enemy, in the end times. Yes, it makes me uncomfortable, just as I’m sure Jesus made the disciples uncomfortable when he healed the ear of the soldier….
Interesting comments from the NT scholar who accompanied Adams:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/irish357904.shtml