In this past Holy Week, as we contemplated the Lamb that was slain and the price that He paid for the sin of humanity, I was prompted to reflect on the Via Dolorosa in our context — South Africa:
The limestone of Jerusalem is polished smooth,
Worn by the friction of a billion prayers
And the weight of a cross that refused to stay down.
It is a narrow vein, a Via Dolorosa,
Where Jesus traced the geography of our pain,
Marking the stations of a body breaking
To keep the soul of the world intact.
And if we look further beyond the Levant, toward the Cape,
Where the dust is red and the history is heavy.
We see Jesus walking still, not in ancient robes,
But in the corrugated iron of the windswept flats,
In the long, winding queues for a morning train,
And the quiet, hollow ache of a table missing bread.
The Via is not a museum of misery.
It is the architecture of resilience.
In South Africa today, the Way of Sorrows
Is the street where we refuse to give up on the light,
Because we know Jesus didn’t stop at the hill.
It is the Ubuntu found in the shared taxi,
The “Sawubona” that says, I see your cross, and I see Him.
We know that Sunday is promised,
Why then do we live most of our lives in the Friday climb?
We find holiness in persistence –
Following the footsteps of the One who went before,
Turning the path of pain into a bridge of grace.
The cross was heavy but His love was heavier still.
And here, beneath the Southern Cross,
We look to Jesus, the author of our long walk:
Tired, yes. Scarred, certainly.
But moving, always moving,
And never giving up hope,
Toward a dawn that He has already claimed for us,
His chosen ones,
the apple of His eye,
the ones He chases after with an everlasting love.
It is always darkest before the dawn.
But He Who is faithful, has promised –
Sunday is coming!
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