The other Good Friday Agreement
During the past year our community life has been dominated by the outworking of the Belfast Agreement - or the Good Friday Agreement as it is more popularly known. The Agreement, in keeping with its quasi-religious name, has become a kind of sacred text of political life, the final source of authority in all matters of dogma and political practice. The hermeneutical disputes over the text of the Agreement are reminiscent of the disputes, historical and contemporary, over the text of Holy Scripture. Believer and unbeliever, proponent and opponent all pile into the debate with their own interpretation of the text and their own agenda.
The deadline for implementation of the Agreement has been moved to Good Friday '99. Who would ever have imagined that one of the great dates of the Christian calendar would become the make or break deadline in the politics of Northern Ireland? We could be appalled that the theme of the death of Christ becomes entangled in the grubby world of politics. Or we could see it as quite fitting that 2,000 years on from the original event we in our community witness the celebration of Easter set in the messy world of political manoeuvring, human fear and social instability. Nothing changes.
There are several interesting contrasts between the Good Friday Agreement signed in Belfast in '98 and the original Good Friday Agreement which are worth noting. The Good Friday Agreement signed in Belfast was a negotiated compromise, but given the nature of human life it is unlikely to be the final solution.
Negotiation is the basis of the agreement. Whether all the necessary participants were properly involved and whether all who actually got involved had an equal right to be heard is another matter. Negotiation - with prodding, pushing, encouraging and cajoling - was the basic process behind the agreement.
The Agreement represents a compromise between the signatories. Much of the dispute over the text of the Agreement that has been rumbling on since last Good Friday is over this very matter - who compromised on what and to what extent? But compromise necessarily lies at the heart of the Agreement.
In recent weeks debate as to whether the Agreement represents a 'solution' or a 'staging post' has been carried on through the media. Will there be a united Ireland in fifteen years or will there never be a united Ireland? All depends on to whom you listen and to what you aspire. One thing that is absolutely certain is that just as God put a rein on the idolatrous intentions of the people of Babel and threw them into confusion through the use of language so he keeps check on human political idolatry through the constant movement of governments, borders and peoples. There will be no final solution here because human society in always in flux. Governments and borders are always changing. Empires and thrones are always rising and falling.
Unlike the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, the original Good Friday event was not a temporary compromise, negotiated between various interested parties. Two thousand years ago in our time, God unilaterally triggered a process of reconciliation conceived in his time. No one negotiated. No one wanted to negotiate, but grace was exercised. Rebellion against God was the driving principle of our actions and behaviour. Idolatry and self-centredness were the core values of our collective life. God could do what he liked but he needn't expect any loyalty from us. So God did do what he liked and his pleasure has always astounded us. Contrary to what we were told by the deceiver and chose to believe, God was not anti-human and vindictive but determined to meet our rebellion with love and our sin with forgiveness. Unilaterally, graciously, lovingly God took the initiative: "While we were still sinners Christ died for us."
Good Friday was not about compromise but satisfaction.. In this act of grace God did not compromise with us or our wrongdoing. He did not change or lower his standards of holiness to accommodate sinful people. He did not choose to ignore the reality of our rebellion. God dealt justly with our sin through the voluntary and sacrificial death of Christ. Jesus the sinless and innocent one substituted himself for us and carried the full weight of wrath which we deserved to bear. God's intention to put people into a right relationship with himself was achieved through the death of Christ for us and his resurrection from the dead. In the process God's justice was fully satisfied.
That Good Friday event was God's final solution. The death of Christ on the cross was as critical and defining an event for humanity as creation itself. All that was ever necessary to be done for our salvation was completed during those days. There is nothing to be added, nothing to be repeated. All that remains is for the gift to be appropriated by faith. We often speak of the 'finished work of Christ'. This is a good term on which to hang our confidence and certainty of forgiveness. As Kendrick says in his hymn:
"The price is paid, come let us enter in
to all that Jesus died to make our own.
For every sin more than enough he gave,
and bought our freedom from each guilty stain."
At a time when people's minds will be concentrated on the issue of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, we should not miss the opportunity to contrast what is a temporary, negotiated compromise with the event from which it has borrowed its name - God's act of grace which fully satisfied his just demands, the final solution that has forever settled the destiny of those who follow Christ.
At a time of continued uncertainty and hostility let us model that godly grace as we satisfy the demands of the risen Christ to love our neighbour and our enemy, and bring to the hearts of many fearful Unionists and Nationalists the message of hope and certainty of God's final solution through faith in the risen Christ.