Witness

Nelson Mandella is dying.  His life has been so full of threat and abuse, it’s a miracle he lived this long.  But his life cannot be measured in days.  He’s a giant of history.  He was imprisoned for years for standing up for justice.  He refused to believe what he’d been told by the powerful people who had been telling such things to black Africans long before he’d been born.  The whites had told them to keep their place, to give up their rights to vote, to stop want a good education, to marry who they wanted, to get a good job.  They were told to give up their dreams for themselves and their children.  They were beaten and killed.  They were like lambs led to the slaughter.

In spite of all the horror and ugliness, Mandella refused to back down.  He insisted on maintaining his dignity and his humanity and his faith.  And his faith and his dignity pushed him beyond all the ugliness that had been heaped on him and his people.  He said, don’t let your past determine your future.  He lived by those words and by the dignity and faith of his Lord and Savior.  And because of his courage and witness he became an incarnation of the power of the Good News that guided his life, refusing to trade violence for violence, refusing to be determined by the ugliness offered to him.

Every time I get the feeling this faith business, this preaching business has little power or importance, I read the call of Jeremiah.  He was told that the words he spoke would “…destroy and overthrow, …build and plant.” 

If we are to believe in the promises of God and remember the cloud of witnesses that have lived by those promises down through the ages, we will never be able to denigrate the calling that has brought us to the ministry and the pulpit.  And we should never believe the statements of the smart and intelligent people who tell us we are wasting our time in this religion business, who tell us to take our Lord’s vision of love and justice back to the dark corner where all ideals should be kept. 

Nelson Mandella is dying, but he will never die.  His life rests in the hands and in the heart of his crucified and risen Lord.  As does each of ours. 

Thanks be to God.