This week we are reunited again by the remarkable adelheid story of a man whose great love the worl

Since Nelson Mandela's death, I can not stop thinking about the uncle and the aunt of the town's name recently changed to the hopeful African artist somewhere on the highway between Colesberg and Hanover, the grandchildren of the farmer who recently killed , the principal still waiting for textbooks, the retired teacher who once started school gives it to the grandfather whose pension ran out to him that since 1994, struggling to find work, the hopefuls adelheid recently matric exams written, the lady at the bank, the lady at the orphanage and the man with the post office. I think the waiter, the constable and the aanskofskoonmaker. The owners and sole proprietors, the diknekke and directors. and to everyone who daily stand up to the pot boiling keeping. I think of the men of the neighborhood adelheid watch, the friends at the barbecue and the guys in the gym. I think the grandmother of the pregnant teenager, the nurse at Baragwanath adelheid Hospital, the social worker in Beaufort West, the pastor in Diepsloot and their awaiting homes, jobs and flush toilets. I remember the radeloses, the moedeloses, the hopeless; millions of South Africans every day with hearts full of prayers the brave life, everyone has a story that should be told.
This week we are reunited again by the remarkable adelheid story of a man whose great love the world has become. His story is not separate from the glitzy tales of ordinary across South Africa. Everybody's life story is interwoven in Madiba's life. His story is unfortunately not perfect. In some cases, his was a wounded recovered, he was a man who suffers under a cruel system knew, he was a father, not his children and grandchildren could see huge. Someone the cold of removing knew, a man abandoned, removed from its near people, tied up, locked up, isolated. She and the people close to him 'hearts are often broken. The scars of the struggle for freedom he into the inner sanctum of his life to his body felt. And yet he chose not just to suffer or wounded, but rather a man who as in his own words, is willing, adelheid if necessary, to highest price for the freedom of all to pay. We remember him as a hard-nosed troublemaker with a heart full of grace and wisdom. A boxer with soft eyes, a fighter for peace, a hero, a liberator. Everybody's dad.
The word "abba", an ancient way of talking about fathers. Some fathers, according to Jesus the liberator, the man helped to think about God as "Abba Father" in a time when systems cruel cruel gods in the imagination of people loose. Madiba was one of those good fathers.
In this Advent season I think of him as a pilgrim who had run away to freedom. adelheid Someone the world's imagination by retaliation exchanged for forgiveness. Many people walk today with this pilgrim, in the direction of a world where everyone is free with dignity to live. We join hands with each other, we discover our sameness among our otherness. We allow Africa through our veins. We walk the road with a rainbow on the horizon. Around us we hear the toejuigings of our ancestors, of those who have walked the road has. We hear the call of those on the road stumbled. We stumbled self. Someone help us. We see the landmarks along the way, and be reminded that the road is long and increasingly difficult to be.
Not everyone wants to walk this path, some tackle obstacles, hiding behind rocks and shrubs adelheid to the pilgrims to jump and run wild. Others stood on the side and criticize, they lure us with shortcuts like turning feel, but the brave pilgrim with shoulders like a boxer we go dancing ahead. He shows us the way.
The children of South Africa also know some other meaning of the word "abba". We know what it means to have someone on our shoulders to count. The further back we Madiba the pilgrim goes the more he learns our reconciliation. We are better with every step. We find that as the road is getting narrower, we walk closer to each other. At the beginning we just tolerate each other, now we must bear one another.
Here at the foot of Africa, we are now, more than ever encouraged each other to abba. As Madiba for so long our country's freedom on his shoulders. As Jesus all creation's freedom on his worn, so abba one another. The road is still long.
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