Nelson Mandela and the Ministry of Reconciliation

South Africa The Good News / www.sagoodnews.co.za

I watched this video of Nelson Mandela’s memorial service this morning. It made me choke up.

I’ve been realizing how very little I knew about this man before these past few days, except that he was a great South African president, imprisoned unfairly for many years, and hugely instrumental—somehow—in the fall of apartheid. This past week I’ve been trying to give myself a crash course through newspaper and online articles and clips.

I still don’t know a lot, though I now have a movie and documentary line up to learn more thanks to a South African friend at church. And others have already written about Mr. Mandela better than I can. But I’ve already been inspired and touched by this humble man’s legacy. He wasn’t perfect, and himself opposed the near-sainthood sometimes ascribed to him. But Nelson Mandela is a tremendous example of seeking reconciliation rather than revenge and reaching out across lines of hatred and division with a purpose toward peace and forgiveness. While I haven’t yet found out whether he knew Christ personally, he certainly put His teachings into practice in a way many, even supposed Christians, have not.

Photo source: World Economic Forum

I received an e-newsletter the other day from friends who have ministered on the Navajo Reservation for over forty years and expect to die there. They shared a verse the Lord has been impressing on them:

“He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20)

And that is so much what Christmas is about, isn’t it? Christ’s ministry of reconciliation—God reaching to us across the walls that separate us from Him, seeking relationship restored rather than what we actually deserve.

I’m thankful for Nelson Mandela, and how God used him to initiate healing in South Africa…a small picture of God’s far bigger work through Jesus coming into this world. And I want to be part of that work of reconciliation He is continuing today.

Thankful we have a God like this:

“And He will judge between many peoples and render decisions for mighty, distant nations. Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they train for war. Each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. Though all the peoples walk each in the name of his god, as for us, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.” ~Micah 4:3-5

And,

“This One will be our peace.” ~Micah 5:5a

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