If you had been on the island of Nusakambangan, just south of Java, at around midnight last night, you may have heard a familiar sound.
Voices, singing harmoniously, to a familiar tune.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
Upon hearing this, you may have headed towards the sound, to discover what it was that had made this chorus of people sing to the Lord. Perhaps some folks came out on holiday, and are enjoying creation.
As you made your way through the rain forest, things may start to seem out of place. Barbed wire. A fence. Concrete. Bright spotlights.
Getting through all this, you find the people you're looking for.
They aren't all around a fire, camping in the wilderness.
They are in a prison compound, unable to move. They are tied to stakes in the ground, wide-eyed, staring across to the other side of the compound, where soldiers wait with guns at the ready. They are facing death.
They are singing.
In the last minutes of their lives on earth, they sing of eternity in heaven.
When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun.
Then a new song begins.
ratatatatatatatatat
Then, when death has played its song, silence is the sound of Nusakambagan.
In the distance, you hear other songs. The wailing of family and friends, knowing that their loved ones are with them no more. The rumbling of vehicles, coming to take away the bodies that had minutes before housed a living soul. The muttering of soldiers, having performed their duty for the country. The flashes of photographers, capturing the moments of emotional pain that will sear into memories for decades to come.
But beyond this earth, there is another song. It is a chorus of people, singing the first song of an eternity spent with their Lord.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.
Beautifully written.
ReplyDelete