Ransomed, Healed, Restored and Forgiven - CDP Annual Convention Community Service 2007
CDP Annual Convention Community Service
This year we celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade by Great Britain. It came as a result of a battle that lasted in the British Parliament for over 27 years by William Wilberforce. While that abolished the trade in slaves throughout the North Atlantic, it was another twenty-five years after that before slavery itself was abolished in the British Empire. Again brought by Wilberforce in 1833 long after his involvement with Australia and just a couple of weeks before he died. In the United States, slavery was not abolished until after the dreadful internal conflict of the American Civil War, which ended in 1865.
For most Western people, we believe that slavery has therefore been abolished but slavery is still widely practised today particularly in countries of the Middle East such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, throughout parts of Eastern Europe and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.
While most countries of the world have outlawed slavery. In the Sudan, slavery is still legal. Children are sold into slavery. Women are sold as sex slaves being bought very largely by wealthy Arabic-speaking Middle Eastern men. There are still debt slaves in India and Pakistan. There are still indentured slaves who are paying off the debt of their father or their grandfather.
The British House of Lords, a few years ago, sent a high-ranking commission to examine the role of slavery in India today. A member of House of Lords, the redoubtable Baroness Cox, whom I had the privilege to meet, wrote the report. In her report, she indicated that the House of Lords Committee into slavery has found that there are more slaves working permanently without pay today than there were in the time of William Wilberforce or Abraham Lincoln.
I made mention the other night that for some thirty years through the influence of one of my staff members, I became a member of the British Anti-Slavery Movement now called Slavery International. It was a result of that and also connections with the Sudan United Mission that bought to Australia and to Wesley Mission to Reverend Walter Pin Pom.
Reverend Pin Pom has a remarkable ministry. He redeems women slaves. Our people gave very generously. It costs AUD$1,200 to buy a woman sex slave from her owners and restore her back to her family. On radio and television, I interviewed Reverend Pin Pom and the Australian people responded to my appeal with great generosity. Many women and young girls were redeemed from slavery in the Sudan as a result.
The Australian Government has been generous towards these people who have now no home or no work but are still under the threat of indentured livelihood. The last ten years, under the Howard Government, more ex-slaves have been brought as refugees to Australia than at any period in Australian history.
But these refugees particularly from the Sudan have to be taught English. They have to be taught work skills and they have to find housing, and jobs. I discovered that when we brought some of these people to Australia, I had grabbed something that felt like a rope with a bit of a tassel on the end of it and when the light fully dawned I had realised I had the tail of an elephant!
It was a huge unending job that continues till this day. Four years ago, my manager at Alstonville, on her monthly report to me, said I must tell about some of those Sudanese people.
Ros McInnes told me that they have been running English speaking classes, teaching people trades, and she told me the macadamia nut farmers were going out of their minds because no Australian is interested in picking macadamia nuts. It is hard work.
She said they have spent all their lives in foraging and in picking up. They fill the buckets quickly. They don’t mind the backbreaking work under the trees of picking up the nuts on the ground. She said, “I have a whole lot now in jobs permanently”. A couple of months later, Ros was down at our managers meeting and she said I must follow-up on the story of those Sudanese people and macadamia nut farmers. I said, “Yes, I remember”.
She said, “One of the farmers drove into my office and said, ‘At this time of the year, I have to let the (Sudanese) pickers go, the harvest is in. But there are a couple of men there that are very good. If you could only improve their English skills and get them to a TAFE course and have them learn how to prune, I’ll keep them on all over winter so they can do my pruning’. We did that. A little later, he came back again and said, ‘One of those two men that you got through the course in horticulture has also got a certificate in using chainsaws and all that sort of thing. If you can get him to a do a horticulture course, I’ll make him manager on one of our macadamia nut plantations’. We got him to TAFE, his English had improved, his skills had developed, he started doing Horticulture I and then Horticulture II and he is today manager of that particular macadamia nut plantation”. I’ve never forgotten that.
Last Tuesday I was at Gunnedah. The mayor of Gunnedah had put on a breakfast for me. A hundred-twenty or a hundred-thirty community leaders, all the doctors, the ambulance people, the shire workers, the heads and principals of schools, the clergy and the media, all the significant people in the community and I was to talk to them about the nine issues facing Australian communities today and what the CDP is doing about them. It was a good talk and everybody was happy.
I was standing near the door saying goodbye and there was a man who hung back. He said, “My name is Patrick Robards”. I said “Yes, Mr Robards?”. He said, “I want to talk to you about Wesley Mission and what you’re doing with these Sudanese people”. And I thought perhaps retreat is the best thing I can do at this stage and I said, “I’ve actually retired now from Wesley Mission. After twenty-seven years as Chief Executive of Wesley Mission. I am retired now and work full-time in parliament”.
He said, “I know a lot of them. I want you to give a message to your employees”. I said, “I’m in Parliament now and I’ve retired from Wesley Mission when I reached 65”, but Mr Robards went on. He said, “I’m the meat inspector”. I said, “Yes?”. Then I thought, “Oh, I’ve heard this. I saw it on Landline”. Some of our Sudanese people, our staff have got into jobs, and they went through training courses because the abattoirs couldn’t find meat workers and they have now done their courses in meat butchering and they’re working in the abattoirs. I said, “I heard they were working in an abattoir”. He said, “No, all the abattoirs around here. Do you know that your Sudanese people….”. I thought there’s no point trying to explain. He said, “Do you know that your Sudanese people have saved the Gunnedah abattoir. It was about to close down. And your people are there. I go there every week and I know them”.
I said, “Alright, I’ll pass that on to some of the Wesley people”. He said, “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about”. I glanced across the Mayor and few councillors who were waiting to say goodbye. We’ve got to go. I had a six-hour drive with Beverley to get back to Sydney and I’ve got a full day in Parliament the next day with all these appointments and I’ve got Christian Focus on Society and a very important person giving a testimony of faith, Mr Ron Delezio. His daughter, little Sophie, was burnt along with another little girl in a childcare centre from the petrol from the car which crashed through the wall of the day-care. Her two feet were burnt off, her hand burnt off, and she suffered a second tragedy when an elderly man driving a car on a pedestrian crossing hit her.
Ron is a beautiful person and ever since day one, I’ve been interested in the family because some years ago I knew there were not enough nurses at Royal North Shore hospital. I saw a business opportunity and I opened up a school for training aides in nursing and registered nurses and then took over a business. At that stage it had 650 nurses on staff and Wesley Mission had won the contract to nurse Sophie Delezio everyday through all of her treatments for the next ten years and is still doing it. Ron and Carolyn and little brother, Martin, are just used to Wesley Mission in their house every day. I had asked Ron to come and give a testimony of faith about how faith helps you in tough times. I had to be back for that.
I said, “Mr Robards, I really must go. I’ve got six hours to get back. I’ve got a full day in Parliament. I’ve got Christian Focus on Society”. So I said, “I have to go, Mr Robards”.
He replied, “I know most of your Sudanese. They call me Mr Pat”. I said “Yes”. He said, “They start work in the middle of the night and they ride bicycles to work in the dark”. I suddenly had the picture of an old swaggie who was drunk; sleeping under a bridge, and in the middle of the night wakes up and suddenly sees all these white teeth coming towards him along the road singing Advance Australia Fair – the only song in English they know. He would swear off drink for life. He said, “They ride bikes to work”. I replied, “Yes, that’s good”.
Mr Robards said, “On Saturday, in Gunnedah I started hearing voices yelling at me: Mr Pat, Mr Pat”. He said, “I knew they were some of your people”. He said, “You know you got to teach your staff that when they ride their bikes to work it’s the law, you’ve got to wear crash helmets. They don’t know that. You got to teach them crash helmets”. Mr Robards said he heard voices, “Mr Pat Mr Pat come over”. And Mr Robards came over. Three families had together just bought a car and now they can get to work. Here they are earning money, speaking the language.
They showed Mr Pat the car. They lifted the bonnet. They showed Mr Pat inside it. And Mr Robards said to them, “Do you have driving licences?” They replied, “Oh yes, we are doing lessons”. He said, “Teach your staff, they’ve got to get their driving licences before they buy the car. I said, “Mr Robards, I will pass that message on”. With that I left the meat inspector and farewelled the Mayor and got onto the car to come home.
It’s a long way from Sudan to the abattoirs of Gunnedah. But those slaves would understand more about Wilberforce than we would really understand. Where is Sudan? It’s on the upper-reaches of the river Nile. The river Nile starts and goes through Sudan into Egypt. It was in Egypt 3,300 years ago that the Israelites were slaves for Pharaoh and God had said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and tell him, Let My People Go!” And Moses heard Pharaoh say, “Who is your God? What is His name?” Moses exclaimed, “YAHWEH I am, The Great God of Gods”. Pharaoh said, “I will not let the people go”. Moses held up his staff and warned Pharaoh that if he did not let the people go, there will be plagues come upon him. You read about the plagues in Exodus chapter 12.
The river turned to blood and the fish died, and the swarms of wasps and flies, and the people got sick, and the frogs jumped out of the river and went into the houses and were in the kitchens, in the frying pots and even in Pharaoh’s bath, says the Scripture. But Pharaoh kept on saying, “I will not let the people go”. Sometimes he said, “They can go and then said ‘no’ ”. After all of these twelve plagues, Moses said, “The Lord I AM has said, “The first born of every Egyptian family shall die including the first-born son of Egypt”. Pharaoh was the great god Ra, he was the Sun god. Pharaoh was the god who dominated the known world. But Yahweh said, “I AM, and I shall have no other God before me”.
If he first-born son dies, the dynasty ends, and Pharaoh’s future is finished. Moses told the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour having taken into account the number of people. “You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance to each person to eat and the animals you must choose must be one-year-old males, the same as the first-born son of Pharaoh, and without spot and without blemish, and no bone shall be broken”.
On the 14th day of the month when all the people of the community of Israel gathered at twilight to take some blood from the lamb and put it the sides and top of the door frame of the house, and then eat the lamb and that same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire along with a bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. They remembered the Lord God. That same night God passed throughout Egypt and struck down every first-born both men and animals and I brought judgment to all the gods of Egypt, “ For I am the Lord”. The blood was a sign and when God saw the blood, He passed over.
For 3,300 years, every year Jewish families have remembered that in the Passover. The Gospel states that it was while Jesus was going into Jerusalem, the time came for the first day of the feast of unleavened bread and the disciples asked Jesus where will you make the bread ready to eat the Passover and Jesus replied to the disciples, “Go to the city and tell a certain man that the Teacher says that the appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house”. You remembered what happened.
Jesus was born in the shepherd’s field outside Bethlehem. We know exactly where those fields are today. A few years ago archaeologists, depending upon satellite photographs, which often see the changing terrain under the surface noticed that there were the lines of stone fences now covered and in the corner a square tower. This is where the temple lambs were kept twenty-four hours a day, even in winter. Jerusalem is only a walk of about one hour from the Temple to the killing fields of Bethlehem.
We even know the name of those fields. It is a biblical name from the Book of Jeremiah, Migdal Edar. The tower of the flock was the place where shepherds spent the evening keeping watch over their flock by night. It was the Shepherds who were first told to go and find the baby born the child of God.
The Wise Men had to go to Herod and asked where on earth this child would be and Herod had to consult the learned scholars to find out. It was in Bethlehem and the Shepherds know where lambs are born. The Shepherds went into the field and gathered around the manger and they worshipped and glorified God.
Throughout His life Jesus was referred to as the Lamb of God not just as His birth where he was born to be sacrificed. But when he was baptised John the Baptist standing in the water in the river Jordan looked up the muddy bank and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”. Not just His birth but also every point of His baptism He was be the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.
Throughout His life, when there would be arguments on who would be the greatest Jesus said, “I have come among you as one who serves and gives my life a ransom for many”. On the cross when he died, he died as the sacrificial lamb to take away the sins of the world.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and like one from men who hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. But surely he took our infirmities and He carried our sorrows. We considered Him stricken by God and smitten by Him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgression. He was crushed for our iniquities and by His stripes, We are Healed”. Isaiah said, “We are sheep that have gone astray”. Each of us has turned into His own way but the Lord has laid on Him the Lamb of God, the iniquities of us all”.
When the Apostle Paul reflected upon that he wrote to the Corinthians and said simply “Now our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Christ is the Passover Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world”. That really is the meaning for the Lord’s Supper. We sing the hymn “Praise my soul, the King of Heaven to His feet a tribute we bring. Ransomed, healed restored, forgiven”. Ransomed, Jesus said, “I have come to be the ransom for many”. Healed, sin had broken and marred but now we are being made and renewed and redeemed. Redeemed, Peter wrote, “For you’ve been redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold but with a very precious blood of Jesus”.
The women cost us $1,200 each to redeem but the Lord Jesus redeemed us not with corruptible things but with His own precious blood. And we are restored and forgiven. That’s the point of this Lord’s Supper and we celebrate this Supper, the Apostle Paul spoke of Jesus saying, “This is my Body and this is my Blood” and we will do this until He comes. In fact the last time the Supper will be celebrated in heaven. “I will not eat again with you”, Jesus said, “until I eat with you in my Father’s Kingdom”.
In the Book of Revelation it sees people from every tribe and nation and people and tongue coming together to worship God saying worthy are you for you were slained. For by your blood, you’ve purchased the men of God. From every tribe and language, people and nation. And you have made a kingdom and priests for them to serve our God. All the people are saying “Worthy is the Lamb who were slained to receive the power, wisdom, strength and honour and glory and praise”.
At the end of all time we will gather at the great feast of the Lamb. So as we gather around this table we are looking at thousands of years of history from the time Noah made a sacrifice for the sins of the people to Abraham to Isaac and Jacob all making sacrifices to Moses giving the first covenant and the sacrificial lamb. Down every year until now. Jesus saying, “This is my Body. This is my Blood”. And then he says, in case you are missing the point, “This is the Blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many for the remission of Your sins”.
“What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the Blood of Jesus”. Lord, as we partake this bread and drink this cup, remind us of the great covenant which resulted in us being ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven in Jesus’ name. Amen.
REV. THE HON. DR. GORDON MOYES, A.C., M.L.C.
