Holy War?

Tha you should turn fortified cities into heaps of ruins,
while their inhabitants, shorn of strength,
are dismayed and confounded.
2 Kings 19:25-26

These words make me think of the situation in Iraq today, as a new government prepares to take over from the occupying power, and the civilian population quakes in dismay and confusion, in the face of indiscriminate attacks by insurgents, who claim to be visiting divine vengeance on the infidels and their Iraqi collaborators.

But the words actually refer to the year 701 B.C., when Jerusalem was facing destruction at the hands of Sennacherib, king of the Assyrians. His challenge is delivered by the Rabshakeh (2 Kings 19:8), a title meaning "chief deputy," who comes to Jerusalem to demand unconditional surrender. When the challenge was reported to King Hezekiah (v.14), he was filled with despair, but the prophet Isaiah (v.20), in answer to his urgent message, delivered an oracle against the Assyrian king (vv.21-28).

To this prophetic word is linked a sign (v.29) that a remnant will be saved and that after three years conditions in the land will return to normal. The Assyrian armies departed without laying siege to Jerusalem (v.36), just as Isaiah had predicted (v.28). But this answer to prayer is explained on the basis of a miracle: Sennacherib's army was decimated by the angel of the Lord (v.35), prompting the king to return to his capital, where he was assassinated by his sons (v.37).

Perhaps the Assyrian army was visited by a disease or pestilence. In any case, the fact that the Lord had spared Jerusalem in time of crisis was taken to mean that the Lord would spare the city under any circumstances, quite contrary to the prophet's intention, who knew that the city's destruction had only been postponed.

Our gospel reading is from another situation of imminent disaster: the disciples in the upper room just before Jesus' passion and death. In his farewell discourse Jesus gives no assurance that the Lord will save him miraculously from the fate which awaits him. On the contrary, he warns the disciples that they will share his fate, that they will face persecution and death for preaching in his name (John 15:18-21).

But he promises them the gift of another counselor, the spirit of truth (John 14:16-17), and he leaves them peace, not the peace which the world gives, but the peace of Christ (John 14:27). Jesus' disciples will be scorned and despised, but nothing can separate them from their Master's love.

Today an optimist is free to hope the Iraq, like Jerusalem, will return to normal life in three years time (cf. 2 Kings 19:29), but the language of holy war, which we hear on both sides of today's conflict, is dangerous and inappropriate. God has not given the occupying powers the right to impose democracy on the Middle East, any more than the jihadists are divinely empowered to purge the region in preparation for an Islamic state.