Jesus in the window

Andre’s  4th visit to Uganda 2011

It was about 4 pm in the afternoon. Tropical rains in Nakaseki, Uganda were coming down with great gusto. As we drove along I caught a glimpse of something with the peripheral vision of my left eye. I saw something I never saw before. At first I let it go, but then I thought: I might never see something like that again in my entire life!

‘Stop! Turn back!’ I commanded Richard Ssendi who was driving our rented 4X4. The people in the car were astonished. They asked me: ‘what did you see?’

‘I saw Jesus in a window!’

They laughed because no one else saw it.

‘I will show you. Just go back.’

The car slipped and slided in the red mud as we made a U-turn in the narrow  dirt road. On the way back Richard kept asking: ‘is it this house? Is it that one?’I said he should just keep driving until I tell him to stop. There were not many houses, because it was jungle area. Here and there a hut or a house would crop up beside the road.

Eventually I spotted the blue walled house where I saw the picture. The entire family was standing on the stoep as if they were expecting someone. We asked permission to take a photo.

‘There! ‘ I said, ‘Jesus in the window!’

The people in our vehicle were astonished.

‘How did you see that?’

‘My dad was a hunter and he taught me to train my eye to pick up anything that is different in the bush.’

And there it was: a giant poster of Jesus in the window. I posed next to the window to take a picture of Jesus and me!

The reason why the poster was there is obvious: they have no curtains and the big poster had to be the substitute. It did the job. It also attracted my attention. When we finished the photo session, I gave the family fifty thousand Uganda Shillings ($100 equals 270 000 Uganda Shillings). The family were so happy some of them danced around on the stoep.

We all have far too many pictures today: the digital world has made it easy to take many pictures and to store them. We hardly look at all the photographs we take. But this one is a special one. It is one in ten thousand. I thought of the verse in the Song of Solomon 5:10 that describes the Lord as ‘the fairest of ten thousand!’

This is the kind of photograph I want to take: the one you will never take again. It was worth turning back for. I felt content. My heart was happy. I had a picture of Jesus and me.

I had to go to the middle of the jungle bush in Uganda to find that picture!

Then the Holy Spirit started ministering to me from the Scriptures within me.

Song of Solomon 2

⁸ The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. ⁹ My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing?^e? himself through the lattice. ¹⁰ My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. ¹¹

Song of Solomon 3

¹ By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. ² I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. ³ The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? ^{4 [1]}

Song of Solomon 5

² I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. ³ I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? ⁴ My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. ?^b? ⁵ I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. ⁶ I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. ⁷ The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. ⁸ I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love. ^[2]

My beloved was at the window, He put His hand through the lattice, He tried to open the door, but I was heavy with sleep. When I finally got up and opened the door, my beloved was gone…I ran after him, looking for Him in the streets, but the watchmen caught me and beat me…but I was sick with love…I said, if you find my beloved, tell Him I am looking for Him.

How many times do we have those divine moments when the presence of the Lord is so real in our lives? But we are heavy with earthly sleep. We are not awake spiritually to capture those moments. We miss the heartbeat of our beloved. We send him away because we are too busy with other things.

And when we decide it is time for the Lord, we cannot find Him. He has gone away. And we rush out to seek Him where we will not find Him. We get beaten up by the bullies in the street and yet, we continue seeking after Him.

How many times does the Lord want to speak with us, commune with us, have intimate fellowship with us, but we miss the opportunity? He is at the window and His hand is at the lattice…but we are heavy with sleep.

II Corinthians 4:4 says the god of this world has rocked people to sleep in his lap so that they cannot hear the Gospel and get saved. All the worldliness that we have allowed in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ has put people to sleep. They can no longer recognise the voice of the Beloved, nor can they wake up out of their deep sleep to respond to His promptings.

Men love the systems of the world that give them success, more than the presence of the Lord. They would rather be successful in the world’s eyes than have communion with the Master. The church services have become dry and dead, the people are fast asleep, because they use the multi-level selling pyramidal schemes to build the church. They worship church growth rather than the Living God. They worship their own achievements rather than God.

In other churches they are so man-centred that they even have coffee breaks between the worship session and the sermon. People are more addicted to coffee than to serve the Living God. They entertain in other churches and many churches have become Christian disco’s with strobe lights and the auditorium is dumped in darkness so that the youth can dance to their hearts delight in the church.

Where there are miracle workers, they turn the meeting into a show, with all the glitter and gold, like a Hollywood show. They perform the miracles to the applause of the people.

The simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is lost in all the worldliness in the church. There is hardly any difference between the church and the world anymore.

Jesus is knocki