It was the first time I had ever seen a standing ovation for
a confessed killer. It was also the first time I had seen a
standing ovation after the first keynote address to these high schoolers.
They usually reserve their judgement until the end of the week.
Their admiration isn’t easily won.
It was also the first time I had a feeling that I was in the
presence of greatness. Rev. Princeton Abararoha may not be another Nelson
Mandela but he’s probably the closest I’ll ever come to in my lifetime.
With a mellow voice holding onto a soft African accent he sometimes spoke as
soft and gentle as a mother’s touch. Then he could switch to make his
case for the power of God’s love with the vibrant energy of a drum major.
I already knew Princeton’s son from other youth retreats. That week I understood where Daniel got his character from.
As a child in Nigeria, Princeton lived inside a world torn
asunder by a civil war that began in 1967. When he was 12 years old he
was kidnapped by the notorious Boko Haram and turned into a child soldier. This isn’t a new technique and unfortunately
they still are doing it.
Princeton
told us that they were drugged and taught to kill, then sent out to villages to
kill innocent people. He doesn’t think too much of Russia because most of
their equipment was manufactured in Russia. He didn’t give us more
details than that and I’m sure it was a time of his life he would like to
forget. What ended his time as a soldier was the day a hand grenade blew
up in his hand and burned most of his body.
The doctors usually amputated the hand as a quick and expedient
way to get the kid out of the hospital. There was not enough time or
resources to save a badly mangled hand. Princeton’s uncle found out and
took him home to get proper medical care. He told us how many surgeries
he had but there wasn’t room for that statistic in my brain—I was too busy
taking in the horror of it all. He needed skin grafts on his hand but that was
impossible because most of his skin had been so badly burned he didn’t have
enough healthy tissue. So they grafted skin from someone else. He
showed us pictures of the hand in between photos of the child soldiers and
starving children.
The whole thing would have been overwhelming if not for his
comforting words and the idea that the story had as happy an end as possible in
the midst of such evil.
After the hospital he went to a school run by Christian
missionaries. And there he found Jesus and, as Princeton says, he hasn't
stopped talking about Him yet.
He ask them “Who is this Jesus? Is it possible
Princeton could be forgiven after all he had done? Explain to me this idea of
Grace.” Then he realized he had to go to the families of the people he
had killed. Friends, naturally cautioned him against this move.
"They will kill you," he was told. I can't imagine what courage
it took to do this. But he went and begged their forgiveness and he
didn't get killed.
Princeton ended up in Oklahoma as fate would have it. He
entered a Baptist seminary in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. Then, as my people
would joke, he “saw the light” and became Presbyterian.
The theme of our retreat was, of course: Grace. I’ve
come to realize all sermons are ultimately and simply, about Grace. I
tell the Confirmation Class that when they are examined by the elders and asked
a question they can’t answer they can simply say, “I’m not sure but I
know it has something to do with grace.”
In fact, a lot of our retreat themes are about Grace. We name about a third of the Presbyterian churches Grace
Presbyterian. We sing songs about it. We try to live into it and in this
we spend most of our lives trying to understand the concept.
But there was another word Princeton wanted us to
understand: “abide.” And in one keynote session he spent some time
explaining that the goal is to abide in Christ so that He is so seamlessly
imbedded in you that folks can’t tell where you end and Christ begins. A
lofty goal. An almost impossible one, you could say. But the first
step is to understand the word “abide.”
He spoke of grafting trees. You can’t get an apple from an
orange tree. Unless you graft the host tree with a guest bud. My
friend James has an apricot tree that gives him peaches. Could my simple
life produce fruit as fantastic as Christ’s?
Well, one night at our evening devotional our small group leader
asked him to come visit our group and answer questions from the kids. By
this time the kids were so impressed by his story they might have been a little starstruck because nobody would talk or ask any questions of Princeton. And we sat there letting a peaceful
silence waft through our circle.
Finally I asked—shyly, because I, too, was starstruck. I
asked him if I could see his hand and feel it.
The skin graft was clear to see. The new skin was much
darker in color than the surrounding tissue. Whether it was from someone
with darker skin (which I rated impossible since Princeton is very dark) or
from a different body part than the palm of a hand—I didn’t ask for
details. What I wanted was to feel the margins of the graft. And I
couldn’t feel them. The skin had by now become his own skin. There
were no bumps where stitches had been made, only a slight dip where the new
skin was thinner than the original. The “new” skin had become part of
Princeton. It was abiding in him. I couldn’t tell the old Princeton
skin from the new.
This is our goal: That Christ could be grafted into our
souls in such a way that you can’t tell which is Christ and which is your old
self.
Jesus introduces the idea of Abiding in Him in John 15. He
talks about some other stuff in there, too. In fact, Jesus is quite busy
in John 15 as far as quotability goes. Read the whole chapter. And
you could hum a song while you do it.
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
Amen
What an amazing experience. Special things always happen at Synod! Thank you for sharing.
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