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Good Friday
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, March 25, 2016


Homily


My first trip to Rwanda was in June of 2008 and I went there to visit the friends of our sister church in Gahanga to begin building a relationship with other priests that our church had known for several years. They were excited for me to come there and let me know up front how much it meant that people from our church come year after year to maintain our friendship. I didn’t understand at first why this was so important but it wouldn’t take long for me to figure it out.

As you will recall, in 1994 Rwanda experienced the horrific event of mass genocide. It was a mass slaughter of the Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes by members of the Hutu majority and over a period of 100 days as many as 1 million people were murdered and many more maimed for life. Approximately 70% of the Tutsi population and 20% of the Rwandan population were exterminated in a very brutal and calculated way. The world stood by and did nothing until after it was all over and as a matter of fact I’m betting that none of us were even aware that it was going on. As my time unfolded there it became clear to me why they were so grateful that we as a church faithfully came back year after year, they didn’t want to ever again be forgotten.

On our second day there they wanted to take us to see various sites that would help me understand Rwandan culture. One of our visits was to a small town called Bugasera and we stopped at an old church that was now abandoned and a memorial to the genocide. It was there that I was to see first-hand the results and the horrors of the Rwandan genocide. It seems that the priest of that church had offered sanctuary to those who were hiding from the government troops and armed citizens assisting them in hunting those who were to be killed. It was claimed that as many as 5000 people crammed into that church but I suspect that figure is more than could get into the building.

Either way, once the people were in the building the priest locked the doors and went and notified the troops. They came there and with cannon fire blew the doors open and systematically butchered every man, woman and child.

We were standing there 14 years later and the building was just like it was left the day that it happened. The front door was still only hanging by one hinge and there was shrapnel in the walls both inside and out. There were stains on the floor and walls but we were told that most of the blood had been cleaned up to prevent disease. Once they had been discovered, the bodies were buried in a mass grave behind the church and a memorial placed in concrete over it but the skulls and femurs of each person were placed on shelves they had built lining the inside of the building both upstairs and down and their clothes were stacked in piles in front of the benches in the sanctuary.

There was a lady sitting in a chair behind a card table outside the building and she was basically the curator of this museum of sorts. I will never forget the sadness on her face and the lifelessness in her eyes. She told me that she was there because her husband was one of the people killed and she volunteered to sit at the table and hand out brochures when she could. I wanted to know her story and so I asked our interpreter to come with me and I introduced myself. She described the brutality and fear of that period of time and I got the impression that she felt guilty that she had not been there and still lived.

As it ends up she was looking particularly sad because someone had broken into her modest home the night before and stolen what little she had. We gathered around her and prayed with her as she wept and cried out to God for relief from her pain. We stayed with her awhile and before we left took up a collection that gave her enough Rwandan francs to get her re-established. I asked why the museum had been left this way and her answer was powerful. She said, “It was left this way so that everyone could see the truth of what happened and hopefully it will affect them enough that it will never happen again.”

I thought of war memorials in the US and how sobering yet sterile they seemed in comparison to this one. Rwandans have seen how evil can set in and destroy a people when it is not addressed early on. Later on we encountered a short film about some who participated in the genocide but had now gotten out of prison. They were racked with guilt and could not believe that they had acted with no remorse initially but were overcome with blood lust. One man said, “I can’t believe that I did it. That’s not me, at least I didn’t think so.”

There are many memorials in Rwanda that are just like that because they don’t want to forget what they were capable of. I don’t think I’ve had many things in my life affect me so deeply, not just because of the stark reality of what happened there in 1994 but because it reminded me of the horror and power of unrestrained evil and the power of sin.

Sin-the word itself, however, is so commonly used that it has become without real meaning, distorted and abused. In this condition, it carries little emotional and intellectual force because many see the concept of “sin” as being the babbling of religious zealots and those who are quick to judge others rights. To unbelievers, "sin" is almost a joke—they even compose songs containing light references to it. I mean we are all sinners, so what is the big deal.

"Crime" has a far greater effect on us because it is more visible and often has a more immediate impact. Crime forces us to seek security so that it does not touch us in a painful way. Thus, we install locks—maybe several—on our doors and stay away from certain areas and types of people. Crime makes us feel apprehensive and suspicious, and most of us take steps to warn others of the dangers but what about sin.

We are experiencing in our country what happens when God is removed from the conscience of people and his righteous laws are seen as repressive instead of life giving. We can read daily of the foolishness of world leaders and certainly those in our own country as they govern without respect for the righteousness or holiness of God’s Word which used to be the foundation of our nation. We read daily of leaders and educated people coming to moral and ethical conclusions about how we should live that are frighteningly reminiscent of some of the worse times in world history. Abortion, sexual deviance, pedophilia, corporate corruption, marginalizing the poor and considering them the responsibility of government, wars that are insanely brutal and economic collapse on a worldwide level at our door do not seem to be enough to wake us up. How could we have let it get to this level?

Well, this isn’t the first time in history that people have turned and rejected God and paid an extremely heavy price for it as a matter of fact you only have to turn to Genesis 4 to see how quickly men turned from God and the price that they paid.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:2–3:

“In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.”

These verses link together many things regarding sin:

» All have been involved in sin.

» Sin is the force that drives this world.

» This driving force emanates from Satan.

» It motivates conduct involving flesh and mind.

Sin does negative things to us and others. If it were positive or even neutral, a loving God would be unconcerned about it and He would not lead us to repentance or demand that we repent of it. He would not command us to overcome it and come out of this world. Satan is at the crux of sin. His name means "Adversary." He is against God and anything godly. In Revelation 9:11, he is called "Abaddon" and "Apollyon," and both of these names, one Hebrew, the other Greek, mean "Destroyer." Satan is a destroyer, and the spirit that emanates from him, that drives this world and produces sin, is a destroying spirit. We can broadly say that sin does two bad things simultaneously: It produces negative results and destroys.

Tonight we have gathered in remembrance of that day long ago when Jesus Christ, God in the flesh was betrayed, beaten, mocked, scourged with whips and then nailed to a cross so that we could be set free from the price and power of our sins. Satan pulled out all the stops in order to defeat the God who is righteousness and it looked to those observing that he had won. The same thing can be said about our world today—it looks like evil is winning but that’s not the case and never will be. As I remembered the story of Bugasera, and the hopelessness felt by those who were there and experienced the unrestrained evil that allowed that to happen, I was also reminded of how the disciples, friends and family of Jesus felt on that Good Friday long ago. Everything they had hoped for and believed in had suddenly and violently come to a deep blackness that allows no light to permeate it. As they left Golgotha with the lifeless body of their Lord and placed him in the tomb and then walked away, I guarantee you that they were numb and felt nothing but complete hopelessness. This is what the effect of sin produces and Jesus had come to expose and overcome it but now it looked like he had been overcome and was dead. They wouldn’t realize what we now know about the resurrection until the 3rd day and so for tonight through Sunday I am asking that we reflect on the seriousness of our sins and ask God to cleanse us through our repentance and faith in Jesus as we approach the joy of the Resurrection celebration on Sunday. The time has come for Christians to no longer join the world in “winking at our sin” but to see it for what it is, destructive and the reason why Jesus had to come to suffer brutally and die.

One last thing concerning Rwanda and the genocide; for years after the genocide churches there struggled getting people to come because the people did not trust them. They were numb and without hope but the existing congregations continued to pray and for the last 7–8 years they have been experiencing a major revival and the churches are exploding with growth. The reason is because the people grew weary of hopelessness. Let us continue to pray that God will send revival to our nation and that it will start within the church.

©2016 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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