On The Third Day...

Tonight approximately 2020 years ago an anxious man went for a walk in a garden.
If you have a garden maybe you too  just took yourself out for some reflection time to make sense of the announcement that the South African lockdown has been extended for a further two weeks.

The man was facing the unknown. He was facing something he knew he had to do, something he knew would change the entire destiny of humanity. He knew that he was going to make the hugest sacrifice of all to save the lives of mankind.
You too know that this has to be done, you do not have a choice in this and your sacrifice of personal freedom will potentially save the lives of thousands.

The man was so anguished at what he was about to face, at the burden he was about to take upon himself that he wept blood.
And tonight the bills you have to pay, the mouths you have to feed, the salaries you have to somehow find, the employment that you have lost, the debt you will never be able to repay seem to be so insurmountable that if it were possible you too would weep blood.

The man knew that in doing what he was about to do even his own father would not be able to look at him. He knew that in following this course of action he would be separated from the one he loved the most.
And tonight grandparents ache to feel the softness of the nape of a little neck, and lovers long to hold hands, and children long to run in the sunlight with their friends and the quarantined and ill and dying long for the comfort of human touch.

Over the next three days the man would be destroyed. He would be betrayed, humiliated, beaten, tortured, abandoned and killed. It is these details that most people fix upon - the bodily suffering. But  for those who have truly repented of their sin, who have had a rebirth of spirit, who have come face to face with their humanness and  handed it over to the man they know where the agony of his death lies.  It lies in him taking on what we are too ashamed to carry ourselves.

This weekend  dear friend I want you to approach the cross and gaze on the man. The Son  of God. The light of the world. Hang your burdens on His body. His love for you surpasses all earthy realms and we know that neither life nor death can separate you from His love.

And His love is finding you in the strangest of ways. South Africans, tonight our president spoke about hope, recovery and rebirth. He brought the very tenants of God into a secular world. He called us to use who we are, as individuals, as South Africans, to change the way the world works. To restart a system that has long crippled too many.

In fact just the very fact that Cyril Ramaphosa is our current president is a miracle in itself. We shudder to imagine the horror of who we could have been saddled with for this crisis.

Gangs have ceased their warfare to feed the hungry, our politicians are giving up a third of their salaries to go towards medical equipment, the organization that once made weapons of war is now making ventilators. I cannot possibly go into the miracles that are happening across the world in every minute of the day. But they are astounding. They go beyond this world. They come from Heaven. They make us who we were made to be.

And so on the third day when everyone had given up hope the Son of God rose. He rose despite the impossibility. He rose despite his wounds. He rose despite the unbelief. He rose despite the fear. He rose and a new world rose with him.

Friends, the spirit of Christ is moving powerfully, fearlessly and resolutely over our planet. It cares not about bank accounts, debts, salaries and bonds for it was born in a humble stable.
As the world prepares to crucify Him and then watch Him rise again for the 2020th time this year let us emerge from the shadows of the tomb alongside our Christ. Let us bravely take His hand and walk into the bright light of a new world. Let creation begin.