Until November 14, 1940, the English midlands town of Coventry
was probably chiefly known to the wider world for the legendary (and highly
improbable) story of “Lady Godiva”, who was said to have ridden naked through
the streets of Coventry to persuade her husband to lower the taxes on the poor.
But on that November night the Luftwaffe bombarded the city with incendiary
bombs, and both the cathedral and the city burned
We will rebuild
The very next
morning, as the shocked people surveyed the damage all around, and the
devastation to their beautiful 12th century cathedral, which had
taken several direct hits, the decision was made to rebuild. This decision was
made, so the cathedral history tells us, not as an act of defiance to the
Germans, but as a sign of “faith, trust and hope for the future of the world” –
in itself a courageous act of faith during that period which Churchill named
“Britain’s darkest hour”. This response was led by the provost, Richard Howard, who made a cross from 3 nails from the roof
of the destroyed building. Another man,
Jock Forbes, noticed that two charred sticks had fallen in the shape of a cross.
He tied them together, and the “charred cross” placed on an altar of rubble,
became the symbol of their resolution, not only to rebuild, but to deliberately
turn away from hatred and bitterness and seek peace and reconciliation instead.
A Ministry of Reconciliation
The following Christmas Day Provost Howard spoke on national
radio about his commitment, when the war was over, to rebuilding the world on
this basis, rather than revenge. From this choice sprang the development, when
the war was over, of Coventry Cathedral as a world Centre for Reconciliation. One of the first things
they did was send over teams of people to help rebuild the cathedrals in such
cities as Kiel, Dresden and Berlin,
which the Allies had heavily bombed; and those cities, likewise, sent teams to
help with the rebuilding at Coventry. It also led to the formation of the (now)
worldwide Community of the Cross of Nails, which now has 170 partner
organisations in 35 countries, committed together to the ministry of
reconciliation
My own visit
I went to Coventry cathedral one late afternoon, knowing
very little about it except that it had been bombed during the war and rebuilt.
I was quite unprepared for what I found there. The remains of the old
cathedral, open to the sky, still form a place that is set aside for prayer.
Within a partial enclosure of warm red stone, interspersed with the shapes of
the original windows, now bare to the light of heaven, you walk across the
ancient paved floor, knowing that this is a place where men and women have come
to pray for centuries. You ponder the significance of a striking modern sculpture
of St Michael defeating the devil, just outside the new cathedral, encouraged
by the reminder of the absolute ultimate triumph of the Kingdom of God. You go
through the modern cathedral, touched by its spare, modern beauty, and go down
to the section where you read the full history of what has taken place here
down through the centuries, from the original Benedictine monastery of Saxon
times, down through the Reformation and various political shifts of fortune to
the events of the Second World War and all that followed from it. It is a story
of hope, but also a story that sets out starkly the horror and evil that
occurred. You see a lovely carving that signifies reconciliation: two kneeling
figures in embrace.
All of this was deeply moving, and a great inducement to
prayer, but it wasn’t the thing that has stayed with me and had me pondering
its implications for these many months afterwards. The charred cross, emblem of
their deliberate choice to choose mercy, is displayed upon a wall, and
underneath are two stark words, “Father forgive”. It was the missing word that
arrested me, and has haunted my understanding ever since.
For what do we expect to find? The words that Jesus uttered
on the cross, “Father forgive them”. But here there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’,
because, unlike Jesus, we are not innocent victims. Please do not misunderstand
me, of course there are situations of injustice and one-sided malice, (some of
us have experienced them), where one is clearly the wronged and the other one
is the offender. But this is a bigger picture, another place, where, whoever
may have started it, we all stand together, guilty. We all stand together,
helplessly mired in the escalation of wrongs, and that charred cross is the
symbol of the answer. For it was there that Jesus became sin in our place, so
that through Him, and only through Him, we might become the righteousness of
God. It is here that we stand, not enumerating either our rights or our wrongs,
but seeking and finding mercy in the very place where judgement was outpoured.
And so, we all stand together, receiving mercy and passing it, tenderly, one to
another. Thus we are healed and thus, as we carry to others the precious mercy
of Christ, we too become healers.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us
to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was
reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 2
Corinthians 5: 17-19
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