Hidden From Your Eyes

This is a picture of a pew in St. George’s Coptic Church in Tanta, Egypt.

I do not want to look at it. I cannot stop looking at it.

I’d rather it was hidden from our eyes.

There is blood on this pew because a Daesh terrorist detonated a bomb in this sanctuary during worship, killing 27 people and wounding 78 more. (A few hours later another Daesh terrorist detonated another bomb at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, Egypt, killing 17 more people and wounding another 48.)

It was Palm Sunday.

It was the day on which the Bible says Jesus said these words: “As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.’”

I wish I could stop looking at this picture. There is a smear on the back of the pew, apparently made by someone’s fingers in the drips of blood running down. Had those fingers been moments earlier waving a palm branch?

Hosanna, indeed.

We waved palm branches on Sunday, too. Young and old alike sang familiar songs from pews not that much different from the ones in this picture. As we did, our kids paraded around those pews a few times, holding their branches over their heads, smiling at the grown-ups smiling back at them, caught up in the joyful energy of the moment.

And then, you know, we went home and ate lunch.

I suppose I’ll never really understand what motivates violence like this, how such hatred and fear of the other takes root in the human heart, corrupting us, eroding us, minimizing us.

A sensible explanation is hidden from my eyes. Hatred warps the human soul. Violence only ever causes more violence. Fear distorts truth, casting instead a shadow of grotesque and horrifying false reality.

It’s the Palm Sunday juxtaposition that won’t let me go this time. Save us! From halfway around the world, a picture of a bloody church pew. A phrase from Jesus Christ Superstar that says “To conquer death, you only have to die.” A so-called “triumphant” entry, deeply misunderstood then as well as today. A cheering crowd of people who know not what they do. Waving palms, breaking bread, driving nails.

What has changed?

We’re just stuck here. Stuck between Palm Sunday and the cross. Cheers and lament. In between “Hosanna” and “Crucify.” The next big thing is already old news. That which is in plain sight is simultaneously hidden from our eyes. Spiritual déjà vu.

If I didn’t know better, I would say that it feels like we need a resurrection.