Breaking the yoke of inherited resistance (Acts 7:51-60)
Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Margret Nyegenye
Many of us have a background of resistance which if not broken we can never inherit everlasting life or be zealous for Christ. Stephen made this very clear to the Sanhedrin “you stiff necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised.” Circumcision was a great heritage of the Jews yet it created resistance for the gospel.
Yesterday we celebrated the life of Archbishop Luwum who resisted worldly pleasures and believed in Jesus as a youth. He accepted Christ in 1948, 6th January, following his father’s example who had also been inspired by Yusto Otunnu, one of the first converts in Kitgum. It is this zeal for Christ and spreading the good news that slowly led him to a transformed selfless life that still speaks many years after his death.
One day as Luwum was preaching to a group of people in the compound of the All Saints Church in Kitgum in 1948, tears started streaming down his face and he said, “The Spirit of the Lord has shown me that many educated men have run away from the Church.
They want the church to fall and to fall alone. Today, I promise before God and all of you assembled here, that if the church is falling, she will fall on me. I surrender myself to the church.” He did things out of the ordinary and that is why he stood in the midst of the storm and died so that we who are alive can celebrate this freedom of worship today. He
resisted peer pressure and stood for his faith in Christ.
It is documented that on February 5th 1977, armed men attacked Janan Luwum’s residence in Namirembe. Two weeks later on 16th February 1977 he was pronounced dead in a motor accident. This followed a letter that he had been written by bishops to the president complaining about the deteriorating state of affairs in the country. In the letter was this statement, “We have buried many who have died as a result of being shot and there are many more whose bodies have not been found. The gun which was meant to protect Uganda as a nation, the Ugandan citizen and his property, is increasingly being used against the Ugandan to take away his life and his property.” The gun took his life just as he had stated.
His faith in the resurrected Lord made him see victory a head of time. His boldness, selfless love for his flock and zeal for the gospel is what we desire to see in the church today. Someone commented that “Luwum was a man who never sat back in his priestly robe; he had his leadership finger in nearly every piece of the national pie that mattered to this country.”
Our inherited resistance to the gospel, having a resemblance of Christ, yet denying him in our works, selfishness and greed are all vices that we need to surrender today and emulate Janan Luwum’s life.
Rev. Canon Dr. Rebecca Nyegenye
ACTING PROVOST