One such contemporary account from the mission field about Joseph, a Masai warrior, who was smitten by Christ like the centurion. His face bears the ritual scars every young man receives after killing his first lion with only a spear and a shield. One day, as he was waking along a hot, dusty African road, he met a missionary who shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with him. So taken was Joseph by this disclosure that the first thing that he wanted to do was to return to his own village and share that same Good News with the members of his local tribe. He began going door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the Cross of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had. To his amazement the villagers not only didnt care, they became violent. The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. He was dragged from the village and left to die alone in the bush. Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a water hole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, found the strength to get up. He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from people he had known all his life. Impelled by the wound of love, he decided he must have omitted something or told the story of Jesus incorrectly. After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more. Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began again to proclaim Jesus. He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God, he pleaded. Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him, re-opening fresh wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die. To have lived through the first beating was truly remarkable. To survive a second was nothing short of miraculous. Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred- and determined to go back. He returned to the small village and this time, they attacked him before he had a chance to speak. As they whipped him for the third and probably last time, he again witnessed to them about Jesus Christ. Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ. Joseph is no longer known by the ritual scars carved in his face. He is recognized by the wounds he suffered for the sake of Christ. These wounds are not only on his skin, but also in his heart. They are the very wounds of love that Jesus Himself endured for our salvation. He will suffer in every one of us again and again until every precious soul is redeemed. Today, Christ wants to wound each one of us so that we, too, will never cease loving and serving Him. Let us open ourselves up to this wondrous action of grace, this mystical stabbing of our hearts. Let us gladly endure the scars that the piercing love of Christ inflicts. Let us faithfully persist in our resolve to carry out every commandment of Jesus, even to the point of death. Then Jesus will say to us, as He did to the centurion, ...not even in Israel have I found such faith (Math. 8:10). Reade about the Centurion in Matthew 8)
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:30:00 +0000
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