Watching Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals today was painful for the actual parts I got to catch before I had to invigilate an exam at school. To see the Canucks get whooped 4-0 in the most important game in the foreseeable past was agonizing to say the least, but I think the aftermath of the game leaves me more disappointed and troubled.
Don't get me wrong. I love hockey and I love the Canucks. But the response by fans and rioters in downtown after the game was shameful. It was embarrassing and humiliating. With the whole world watching, the youth in our generation chose destruction over law and order and violence over peace. All this over a hockey game. True, some may argue this game was a chance to rewrite history. This was our chance at redemption- to be great. Ironically enough, history has now been rewritten- and it condemns us for not having learned from our mistakes in '94
Where were these young rioters in '94? I suspect most were not even born yet. And if they were, they were likely toddlers and too young to remember the pain of a Cup that slipped from the grasps of a city. They hear stories of the lore written in sagas. They weren't around when Maclean robbed Reichel, or Bure downed the Flames, or when Messier sent the city into heartbreak. They weren't around to see the tears that filled the streets and the city spiral into chaos. None of that matters though because it still doesn't negate their behavior tonight.
What troubles me upon seeing this footage of drunken brawls, brazen revelers taunting police, and degenerate youth smashing public property is that we raised these youth. We are their chemistry teachers, their uncles and aunts, their hockey coaches and neighbours. We saw them fall of their bikes, dissect their first frog and go to their proms. And this is how they have turned out. Drunk, stupid, debauched. They are willing to turn their fist against the very community that raised them. And no, this isn't one of those passionate pleas for parents to get a rein on their children because well, to be honest, I think it's too late for that. On a spiritual level, I'm left with more questions than answers. Upon coming here to Hong Kong, I've been challenged to learn what it means to love the city and seek its good. Jeremiah 29:7 says, "Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." As exiles and sojourners in the various places God has ordained us to be, how do we serve our city? How do we seek its peace and prosperity in a time like this?
What grips me is that in the city we have hordes of young passionate youth who have a displaced hope that needs to be redirected to the gospel and the purposes they can find only in God. As a church, if we truly desire to serve God and bring about His Kingdom, we need to speak out to this demographic and challenge them to more in this life. And if we have a segment of these youth passing through the doors of our churches, we need to step up and walk with them and ensure that we don't lose them to the waste of society. We need to be praying for them, caring for them, and mentoring them. God created them for more than the destruction we saw tonight.
Who knows? Maybe in 17 years we'll get another shot at the Cup. A generation will have passed, and perhaps by then we will have learned our lesson. Perhaps we will have raised our youth so that they stand in the face of defeat and agony and respond with grace and class. Perhaps our city will not be laid ruin by our own depravity spawned by the result of a simple hockey game. Perhaps things will be different because our city will know Christ.
