After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen! (Revelation 7:9-12)

As I sat in the over-crowded tent with 2,000 other people, shaded from the hot African sun but not freed from it's heat, I couldn't help but think that I was sitting in the middle of a precursor to what the Apostle John witnessed in it's full glory in Revelation 7. The languages being spoken around me included Zulu, Tswana, English, and German. Moments before, as we had marched through the streets of Mofolo North in Soweto, South Africa, the national flags of each country represented were held high ... flags from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Nigeria, Liberia, the Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Germany, and the United States. We sang and we danced to the praise of our common God, we heard his Word spoken and proclaimed to us, and the Lamb who was slain gave to us his very body and blood in the Lord's Supper as a foretaste of the feast to come.

When I think about what happened in the tent that morning, as Revered Doctor Wilhelm Weber, a white South African of German ancestry, was installed as the third bishop of the predominantly black Lutheran Church of Southern Africa by the outgoing bishop, the Reverend Doctor David Tswaedi, a black South African of Zulu ancestry, I can't help but think that this was one of those moments where the Church on earth lived as those who have repented and believed ... as those who are embracing today what they will have by virtue of their baptism for eternity.

To further emphasize the significance of what happened inside that tent, the rest of South Africa around us was remembering the 50th anniversary of the Sharpeville Massacre, where, just 50 miles south from where we sat under the tent, 69 unarmed blacks were killed by white police officers during a peaceful protest of apartheid laws (they'd actually gone to the police station with the intent of lining up and being arrested for not carrying their identification cards). As the tragedy of the sinful world was being remembered and relived around us, a world where hate and fear run rampant and people are dehumanized because of their skin color, their language, gender, or their country of origin, inside that tent, while we held many differences, in our standing before God we were equal and one as we will be for eternity; as the Apostle Paul writes:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:27-29)

However, the story goes much deeper than just the brokenness of our world and the Church getting it right because, all too often, the Church has also gotten it wrong, and the backstory to the Sharpeville Massacre is just one of many examples of this. For those who don't know the history of South Africa, the Dutch first established what is modern day Cape Town as a trade company refreshing station in 1652. In 1809, Cape Town was made part of the British Empire. In the 1820's, Dutch, Flemish, German and French colonists (who together form the Boers), along with British colonists, began to expand their territory, bringing them into conflict with native Africans. This expansion was, in part, justified using Scripture. Slavery was seen as acceptable because there are slaves in the Bible. Killing natives to take over new lands was justified because Israel killed the Canaanites to take possession of the Promised Land. The dehumanizing of blacks was considered acceptable because their skin color was "the curse of Ham". If nothing else, because colonization brought the Christian faith along with it, the Westerners considered their claiming of lands justifiable because they were saving the heathen as they went. All of these things, in varying levels, clash with the true message of the gospel.

So how did South Africa, at least this one small pocket of it, get from where they were to what happened inside a tent in Mofolo North on that Sunday morning? While there is still repeating to be done, the continual process is rather simple.

• For those who did wrong, be honest about the past.
• For those who were wronged, give up a legitimate right to revenge.
• Having learned from past mistakes, move forward together with God's Word, correctly read in light of the Gospel, as your guide.
• Repeat ... repeatedly.

How about in your own life, relationships, or congregation? Where do you see the disfunction of this world tearing people apart? What would it look like for you to be honest or to give up the right to revenge and move forward together with God as your guide? Could you too, someday, find yourself sitting in the future, even if it's just a dim reflection and only for a moment?