Cruciform Hope in a Shattered Land: The Historical Gospel for South Africa’s Wounds
Here in Akasia, Pretoria, I watch the sun bleed red over the Magaliesberg, painting our beautiful, broken nation in the colours of both a wound and a sunrise. This past Sunday, as many of us prepared for worship, a different sound shattered the pre-dawn quiet in Bekkersdal, west of Johannesburg—not a hymn, but the relentless crackle of gunfire. Nine souls made in the image of God were cut down; ten more wounded. They were gathered in a tavern, a place of community and escape for many in our townships, now a crime scene. The news reports speak of “unprovoked” attacks, of patrons enjoying themselves one moment and lying on the floor the next, carried to clinics in wheelbarrows. This is not an anomaly. With one of the world’s highest murder rates—a life taken roughly every 20 minutes—South Africa is a nation groaning.
And into this groaning, the world offers many philosophical suggestions. Sociologists analyse systemic inequality, politicians promise tighter security, and activists demand justice. All have their place. But to a heart drowning in grief, to a community paralysed by the “terror” of nightly gunshots, suggestions are not enough. We need a declaration. A truth as solid and unshakable as the platinum buried deep in our soil, a foundation that can bear the weight of our sorrow.
That foundation is the historical gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a wistful idea but a world-altering event: God entered His creation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. This is the crux of everything. The early church fathers, engaging the finest philosophy of their age, fought to define this mystery—the Incarnation—not as a myth but as orthodoxy, as reality. The Council of Chalcedon declared that Jesus is truly God and truly man. Why does this ancient truth matter in Bekkersdal today? Because it means the God we cry out to is not a distant deity. He has walked our dusty streets. He has known our pain. He has felt the betrayal of a friend and the sting of unjust violence.
His mission was not primarily to teach, but to die. On a Roman cross, the sinless Son of God willingly bore the full, furious penalty for human sin—my sin, your sin, the sins that fuel the hatred in a shooter’s heart. This was a substitutionary atonement. He took our place, satisfying the perfect justice of a holy God so that forgiveness could be offered freely to all who believe. This is the humbling, glorious heart of Reformed theology: salvation is God’s sovereign, gracious gift, not our achievement. We were dead in our trespasses, enslaved to sin, and only the miracle of God’s grace could open our blind eyes to see the beauty of Christ.
Then, on the third day, God issued history’s greatest rebuttal to despair: the empty tomb. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our hope. It is God’s triumphant “No!” to the finality of death and His victorious “Yes!” to life eternal. The murder rate declares that death reigns. The empty tomb declares that a greater King has conquered it.
The Church’s Call in Our Strategic Land
We, the South African church—77% of this population—are not called to retreat from this brokenness but to engage it with this unconquerable hope. We are a hotspot nation in God’s global mission: rich in resources, rich in cultural diversity, and positioned at a strategic crossroads of the world. Our suffering has forged a potential for profound spiritual power.
Yet, we have a weak spot. The devil, predictable as ever, exploits the lingering fractures of our apartheid past to breed division, distraction, and distrust within the Body of Christ. While we bicker, the harvest field at our doorstep goes untended. God, in His providence, has used our nation’s economic weight to draw the nations to us. In our cities, the unreached from across Africa and Asia are now “just across the street”. The Pakistani shopkeeper, the Zimbabwean mechanic, the Bangladeshi entrepreneur—they are not a problem to be managed but a divine appointment, a mission field delivered to our doorstep. But we are failing to seize it. Our missions potential is still shackled by a lack of teaching, limited resources, and models that do not resonate across our cultural spectrum.
We must become a church fluent in the gospel and in grace. Our land speaks in 12 official tongues—from isiZulu’s resonant clicks to the lyrical tones of Sesotho. Each language is a vessel of culture and identity. The miracle of Pentecost (Acts 2) was not the erasure of language but its redemption, as people heard the wonders of God in their own heart language. Are we speaking the gospel in the heart language of the Sotho-speaker in Bekkersdal, or the Venda-speaker in Soweto? Or do we offer a foreign, culturally cloaked religion? We must champion a culture-friendly Christology, where Christ is presented not as a destroyer of culture but as its redeemer, meeting people in their context as He Himself did.
A Personal Parable from the Dust
Let me tell you a story. Last year, I met a young man, Sipho, in Soshanguve. His brother was killed in a tavern shooting not unlike the one in Bekkersdal. Sipho’s heart was a battlefield of rage and despair. He confessed he had acquired a gun, intent on revenge. “The ancestors demand blood,” he told me, his eyes hollow.
I listened for hours. Then, I didn’t offer a philosophical suggestion about the cycle of violence. I gave him a historical declaration. I took him to the cross. “Sipho,” I said, “the blood has already been shed. The only blood with the power to truly satisfy justice and end this cycle was shed 2,000 years ago. Jesus took the bullet, mlungu. He absorbed all the rage, all the sin, all the penalty. Your brother’s death is a terrible evil. But vengeance will not raise him. Only the Man who conquered death can.”
We wept together. That day, Sipho didn’t just hear a theory; he encountered a Substitute. He laid down his gun and picked up a cross. Today, he runs a small youth ministry in his township, teaching boys that true strength is found in the crucified Lamb. This is the power of the historical gospel—it doesn’t just comfort the afflicted; it transforms the avenger.
Our Battle Cry: A Logical Hope
Let us be clear and logical, for truth demands it. The argument for our hope can be stated plainly:
1. Premise 1: If Jesus Christ did not rise physically from the dead, our faith is futile, and we are to be pitied more than all others (1 Corinthians 15:17-19).
2. Premise 2: The historical evidence for the resurrection—the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, the explosive growth of the early church—is robust and credible.
3. Premise 3: The resurrection validates Jesus’ claim to deity and the efficacy of His atoning death.
4. Conclusion: Therefore, His victory over sin and death is a present, historical reality into which we can step by faith. The grave in Bekkersdal does not have the final word.
A common objection arises: “How can a good God allow such suffering?” This is a profound question. The gospel does not give a philosophical answer that satisfies every intellectual query; it gives a Person. God’s answer to the problem of evil was to enter into it, to subject Himself to its worst violence on the cross, and to overcome it from within. We do not worship a God who is distant from our pain, but one who is eternally acquainted with it.
So, what must we do, Church of South Africa?
· Weep and Worship: Let us weep with those in Bekkersdal, as Christ wept at Lazarus’s tomb. Then, let us worship the Resurrection and the Life in the midst of the funeral.
· Embrace Our Posture: Let us be a humble people. The doctrines of grace are designed to shatter boasting. We are not special because we are saved; we are saved because of special grace. This humbling truth is the seed of unity across racial and ethnic lines.
· Open Our Eyes and Our Doors: Look across your street. Who is there from an unreached people group? Practice linguistic hospitality. Learn a greeting in Xitsonga or Tshivenda. See our nation’s controversial foreign relations not just as a political dilemma, but as a providential door—perhaps South African missionaries can go where others cannot.
· Declare and Demonstrate: In a land of violence, be communities of Shalom. In a land of corruption, be beacons of integrity. In a land of despair, be living, breathing arguments for the hope that is within you—the hope of a crucified and risen King.
The sun is rising now over Akasia. The red fades to gold. Our land is scarred, yes, but it is also sacred, bought with blood and destined for glory. The gospel of Christ is not a philosophical suggestion for a peaceful life. It is a historical declaration for a dying world: Death is defeated. Sin is conquered. Hope is alive. Let us live—and die—in that unshakable truth.
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