We are elated with you that the Supreme Court made an unequivocal pronouncement on the fact that you are the real Anglicans belonging to the Church of the Province of Central Africa and that these buildings rightly belong to you. We rejoice with you, but of greater delight is the fact that the last five years were indeed a time of personal renewal.
The buildings are now being restored to people who have been taught through the experience of the Holy Spirit and the fire of tribulation that the church is not the building but the people, who have been called out of the world for a special relationship with the Lord and who are on a mission to be the salt and the light of the world. The last five years have made you experience this truth in a life-transformative way and for His glory.
The ministry of John the Baptist was one of radical renewal. It was a ministry that prepared for even more radical transformation through the coming of Jesus Christ, who was to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
We want to reflect on this truth as a source of personal healing following the deep wounds of the past five years of being teargassed, baton-beaten, dispossessed and exiled from your own buildings. These painful experiences should be understood in terms of two agendas at work in the same events. In John 10:10 Jesus Christ expressed these two agendas: “The thief comes to kill, to steal and to destroy; but I have come that you might have life in its fullness”.
Which of the two agendas should we focus on? If we focus on the agenda of the thief we become embittered and revengeful, or we adopt a victim’s mentality and wallow in self-pity. This will not give us the personal healing that God desires for us. Alternatively we focus on Christ’s agenda to renew us and fill us with his life.
Understanding this agenda leads to personal healing.
By the time of John the Baptist the spiritual leaders in Israel had wandered far from God’s truth. The people of God had become cold and backslidden. For this reason God, out of love for his church, sent John with a message of spiritual revival.
He resorted to metaphors: Every valley had to be filled (i.e. those who are in the valley of depression must be uplifted). Every mountain and hill had to be made low (i.e. the proud and arrogant must be humbled).
The crooked must become straight, with moral crookedness being turned into straightness. The rough places must become level. There are people who just tend to be rough with others – who do not speak kindly; their words come out like barbed wire and they tend to be violent.
Radical renewal must touch every aspect of our being. There were Jews who relied too much on their ancestry: “We have Abraham as our father – so we must be ok with God”.
No, said John. Your ancestry does not guarantee that you are ok with God. Today John would have said, “Belonging to an Anglican Church with a good pedigree does not mean you are ok with God. You need to bear your own fruit, showing your repentance”. People wanted to know what this renewal would mean for their personal lives. John said: “Be generous and kind. Whoever has two shirts must share with him who has none.
Whoever has food must do likewise”. To the tax collectors John said: “Be just and avoid your ungodly corruption. Collect no more than you are authorized to do”.
Then to soldiers who had also come for baptism John said: “Stop your violence and extortion – your habit of extorting money by threats and false accusations. Don’t abuse your office for selfish gain”.
John also said that the coming Christ was to baptize them in the Holy Spirit. That is his first instrument for achieving the desired radical renewal. The Spirit would resulting in assurance of salvation, boldness in witness, ease in prayer, consciousness of God’s love, unspeakable joy even in the face of tribulation and the intense awareness of Jesus’ presence in the believer’s life. This is the essence of revival.
The past five years has been a time of being baptised in the Holy Spirit. The church under persecution experienced a revival that has never before been seen in the whole Province of Central Africa. You became the envy of other churches. Fire in the Bible is also associated with purification. History tells us that when there is a lot of comfort God’s people usually settle for a form of religion without power – of devotion and of ethics.
Those tax collectors probably identified themselves as God’s people, yet their practice of corruption did not bother them. Those soldiers who extorted money by intimidation and false accusations probably also identified themselves as God’s people.
Is this not a picture of Zimbabwe today? More than 80% of the population say they are Christian. So who is involved in all the corruption that is killing our economy? Who was involved in the horrific political violence of 2008, and the violence that still persists today?
Who is at the centre of social injustice that manifests itself in many areas of our body politick? Are they not people who sit in our pews on Sunday and then practice these things during the week? No wonder that under these circumstances the Lord has to use his fire of purification, out of love for his people. Job says, “But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10).
For five years you have been put through fire, and you have come out as refined gold.
Fire is also a sign of passion – of revival. God hates lukewarmness. Such a fire of revival was seen in the Anglican Church during the last five years and you became a church experiencing revival despite, or even because of, persecution.
‘Those soldiers who extorted money by intimidation and false accusations probably also identified themselves as God’s people’
The Anglican Church must jealously guard its spiritual gains won during the time of tribulation. This is the Lord’s agenda that overcomes the agenda of the thief. It is our prayer that as you reflect on what the Lord intended for you during these five years you find healing for the deep wounds inflicted during the time of persecution. May the same Holy Spirit who brought revival to the Anglican Church become the Spirit of healing and comfort. – Taken from a message preached at St Mary Magdalene Avondale Anglican Church last Sunday.
Post published in: Analysis