Before the Sanhedrin

It was the kind of Tuesday afternoon in Akasia that makes you question all your life choices. The power had just clicked off—load reduction, Eskom called it, though for our home in Pretoria North, the distinction between a planned outage and a crisis was purely academic. My laptop battery was gasping its last digital breath, the kids’ homework was vanishing into the gloom, and a familiar, simmering frustration began to bubble in my chest.

In the middle of my grumbling, my neighbor, Gogo Mthembu, a woman whose faith is as solid as the Magaliesberg mountains, called over the fence. “Ah, Harold,” she chuckled, her voice a warm beacon in the deepening dusk. “Don’t you see? The darkness just makes His light in us shine brighter. The Sanhedrin met in fancy rooms, but we meet here, in the shadows. It is the perfect place for His power to be made perfect.”

Her words, simple and profound, landed like a perfectly placed stone, sending ripples through my self-pity. She was right. I had been so focused on the failing power grid—a modern-day “Sanhedrin” of Eskom’s load reduction schedules and failing municipal infrastructure—that I had forgotten the lesson of Acts 4. I was Peter, shivering in the courtyard, focused on the world’s temporary fires instead of the eternal flame within.

Let’s be honest. When we read about Peter and John standing before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4:13, it’s easy to imagine them as theological superheroes, their courage pre-installed by the Holy Spirit. But that’s not the whole story. This is the same Peter who, just weeks earlier, had crumbled like a stale rusk before the questioning of a servant girl. He had denied even knowing Jesus’ name. Now, he stands before the highest religious and political court in Israel—the Supreme Court, Parliament, and the Council of Churches all rolled into one—and he is astonishing them. The Greek word used, ethaumazon, implies a sort of bewildered, jaw-dropping wonder. They couldn't compute it. How could these aggramatoi (unschooled, unlettered laymen) and idiotai (ordinary, common men) possess such unshakeable confidence? The text gives us the answer, the only explanation that makes sense of the paradox: “they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

That, my friend, is the entire secret. Not a degree from a prestigious seminary. Not a silver tongue polished by years of eloquence training. Not even the kind of natural courage that comes from a brave personality. Just time. Time spent with Jesus. They had been in the upper room, they had walked the dusty roads of Galilee, they had seen the scars in His hands and feet. They had been saturated in His presence. And that saturation, like a sponge plunged into a bucket of dye, had permanently altered their very color. The restoration was so complete, so profound, that even their enemies could see the watermark of Jesus on their souls. They may not have known the story of Peter’s catastrophic failure and the beachside breakfast of forgiveness, but they couldn't miss the fruit of it.

This is a word in season for us here in South Africa, for our brothers and sisters in Soshanguve and Mamelodi, in Cape Town and Durban. Right now, we are standing before a whole host of modern-day Sanhedrins. We face the court of a Crumbling Public Square, where political coalitions in Gauteng fracture under the weight of power struggles and ideological tension, and where a Premier’s cabinet choices can ignite a firestorm of internal party dissent. We stand before the tribunal of Crushing Cost, where the Competition Commission reveals a grim landscape where the price of bread and electricity races ahead of stagnant wages, and a family of four faces a 35% shortfall just to buy basic nutritional food. We feel the gavel bang of Crisis & Conflict, from the slow-motion catastrophe of failing water infrastructure and a R54 billion bailout plan that experts warn will vanish into a "black hole" of incompetence, to the international pressure on our government for its moral stance on Palestine.

And for the church specifically, we face the pointed questions of a Commission of Control. Thousands of believers recently marched through the streets of Durban, their voices a unified shout of "Hands off the Church!" against what they perceive as the over-regulation of the CRL Rights Commission's Section 22 Committee. Pastor Mpfariseni Mukhuba, chairperson of the South African Church Defenders, declared with holy fire, “The CRL has become the biggest threat to the great commission of the Lord Jesus Christ… We are sent to preach the gospel — without our God we are nothing”. They are standing before their own Sanhedrin, and their answer is the same as Peter and John’s: We answer to a higher court.

So, how do we, unschooled and ordinary as we are, respond to these imposing tribunals? We cannot afford to meet the world's complex problems with simplistic, cliché-ridden faith. That is the way of the ostrich, not the overcomer. We must be both as innocent as doves and as wise as the serpent who has studied the playbook of this fallen world. Yet, our ultimate strategy is not a political one, nor is it a well-crafted public relations campaign. Our strategy is Presence. Our confidence isn't rooted in a stable electricity grid or a well-negotiated government of national unity. It is rooted in the unshakeable kingdom of the One who holds both the grids and the governments in His hands.

The world, with all its sophisticated systems, is looking for a solution. But what it actually needs is a revelation. They need to see a people who are so immersed in the presence of Jesus that their very countenance is a rebuke to the spirit of fear. They need to encounter men and women whose peace isn't dictated by the petrol price, whose joy isn't extinguished by load reduction, and whose hope isn't derailed by political instability. When the world sees us, they may not know the sordid details of our past failures or the intimate moments of our restoration. They may not know that you, like Peter, were once restored by a charcoal fire on a beach. But they will recognize the fingerprints of the Carpenter on your life. They will "take note" that you have been with Jesus.

Gogo Mthembu was right. The darkness, whether it’s the literal darkness of a power outage or the metaphorical darkness of a society in flux, is not a sign of God’s absence. It is the backdrop against which the light of His presence shines most brilliantly. Your restoration, my friend, is not for your private enjoyment. It is public evidence of the resurrected King. It is the quiet, confident, and unshakeable answer you give when the world's Sanhedrins demand to know by what power or by what name you have done this.

Therefore, this is the actionable law of the Kingdom: You cannot fake the fragrance of the King. You can only carry it by lingering in His courts. What you inhale in the secret place, you will exhale in the public square.

May your life be a sign and a wonder. May those who observe you, from the corridors of parliament to the busy streets of Akasia, take note of one thing and one thing only: This one has been with Jesus. And may His presence be the most evident, the most undeniable, the most astonishing thing about your life.

A Blessing Upon You:

May the fire of His presence brand your soul with courage. May the weight of His glory silence the accusations of the enemy. And may the world around you, in all its turmoil and confusion, stop and take note that you have been with Jesus. Amen.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2syprOO3yVdRelF35yZnPU?si=fT2mJyHCTg-b-CyQb-VQiQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-the-sanhedrin/id1506692775?i=1000760184380