Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

We underestimate the enormity of the task undertaken and achieved by Jesus on the cross. If like me you are a descendant from the Caribbean, through no fault of our own, we have inherited the effects of the curse put on our forefathers by the Willie Lynch practices. This is so pervasive that 178 years after the abolition of slavery in the Caribbean, we are still reeling from the effects of it. Let us look at a few of these lasting effects. There are many men of Caribbean descent who think it is ‘cool’ to father as many children as they can with as many women as they can. Little do they know that this behaviour, of fathering a child and then taking no active part in that child’s upbringing was an integral part of the Willie Lynch theory of ‘breeding’ slave workers who would not challenge the status quo. Indeed, the male slave was so emasculated that he was treated as a stallion and then taken from plantation to plantation, to produce strong off-springs to work on the sugar, coffee and banana plantations.  Although we believe in Jesus’ finished work on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit, there are many, even among those who profess to be Christians, who are still behaving in this manner. Another trait that is still prevalent in many with a Caribbean heritage is the pent up rage from the trauma of slavery put on our forefathers. This ‘post traumatic slavery syndrome’ means that the pain from the past which was never dealt with or allowed to be dealt with is being exhibited among our young people in the streets of Britain today. We have ‘Post Code’ killings, gang wars, drive by shootings and so on. These are all the products of untreated pain of the past. Since the slaves were not allowed to express or deal with their anger, it was taken out on those closest to them, namely their helpless children. These children would grow up thinking that beatings and violence was the norm and so perpetuate it.  And so today, in their search for identity and belonging, many youngsters turn to gangs who feed their desire to release the pain of the past and the pain of the ‘absent dad’ syndrome.

The inhumane treatment that Jesus went through prior to being humiliated and shamed by hanging in public naked has made a way for those of all us who unwittingly inherit this curse to jettison it. He has now become the ‘curse’ so that we might walk in his blessing. Our pain has become his pain. As slaves we lost our dignity. By dying naked on a cross so did He. And because of his shed blood we are released from the curse of slavery and from the rage that so easily beset us. What the abolition of slavery (1834) and the slave trade (1807) could not do, Jesus did. How enormous was that! Read Galatians 3:1-18.