The buses left early for our trip (or pilgrimage, as it was styled) to the Mount of Olives. It offered a strange mix of experiences: joy at the extraordinary singing of the African choir, who led us in a brief prayer service on the mountain; fascination at seeing the places where Jesus walked and talked and prayed and was betrayed; eye-rolling distaste for how it all has been turned into a site for religious tourism and idolatry (the Franciscan church at Gethsemane being an extraordinary example of both); and above all, a strange blankness at not feeling even one little bit closer to Jesus through the whole experience.
We were encouraged to pause and reflect quietly while in the Garden of Gethsemane (a pair of twin, walled gardens, with olive trees and other arid climate flora). A few of us pulled out our Bibles and read the relevant part of Luke’s Gospel, and talked about it together. We ended up in Luke 24 with the risen Jesus’ command that “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (v. 47).
I realized that the reason I felt very little spiritual inspiration from being in the Garden was that my access to Jesus had very little to do with being there. I know Jesus because of Luke 24:47—because his gospel has been preached to all nations (even Australia!), starting from the city I was looking at, just across the Kidron valley. Jesus came to me through the gospel, in the power of the Spirit, and the Father and Son fulfilled their promise to make their home with me (John 14:23).
So the pilgrimage to Gethsemane did teach me something: it reminded me that Jesus is near because of his promise and his Spirit.
Back at the Renaissance Hotel Ballroom, Henry Orombi (Archbishop of Uganda) preached a powerful sermon on ‘Jesus is Lord’, the high point of which was his emphasis on the powerful, transforming word of God. Expounding the story of the paralyzed man healed by Jesus in John 5, Archbishop Orombi pointed out that Jesus exercised his Lordship by speaking a creative, healing word of power, and that he continues to do so today.
This is the characteristic testimony of the Ugandan Christian, he told us: I once was this, but now am that—once a drunkard, but now a preacher; once a fornicator, but now a faithful husband; once lost in sin, but now found by Jesus.
It struck me that this is one powerful reason for the abhorrence with which the Africans regard the revisionist ‘gospel’ of the liberals in North American. The liberal gospel is not a gospel of transformation. There is no power to change. Indeed, there is no need to change, because what we ‘once were’ is simply redefined as a valid lifestyle choice: “I once was lost, but now I realize that being lost is who I am, and that God honours that and accepts that”.
Later that night in the press conference, I asked Henry Orombi whether he thought this emphasis on the transforming power of the Word was one of the key differences between evangelicals and liberals. He said:
The preaching of the word of God allows faith and response to germinate. When the Word is preached, things happen.
Why is the church in the Global South growing? And not in the North? When I am in Uganda, I preach for one and a half hours. How long do they preach in the North? 10 minutes?
What is happening in the North? Do they have a love for the Word? An ordinary Christian in the South has a Bible that is well-used and well-thumbed.
How well-thumbed is your Bible?
This emphasis on the Word was also one of the most encouraging things about GAFCON. The message came through again and again: We need now more than ever to rely on the simple, plain preaching of the Word, and the accompanying power of the Holy Spirit.
That’s how people find Jesus, or are found by him.
