Wynand de Koch - Guest Speaker

Wynand de Koch is the Principal of Tabor College and was our guest speaker at the November Gathering.

Growing up, Wynand believed that God was a grumpy old man, with strict rules, who could turn on you quickly, swallow you up for no good reason. It wasn’t a healthy view.

However, after hearing then Bishop Desmond Tutu speak, his whole world was shaken. Coming from a white supremacy background, he now looks back at it and is reminded of the quote by Morpheus in the movie The Matrix - “It’s like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.”

He went to the USA, where many experiences exposed his racism, swinging him from the ultra-conservatism of his childhood, to total opposition to apartheid.

The past 20+ years has been a journey of discovering who God is: loving, not wrathful, drawing us to Him - not pushing us to hell.

Jeremiah 31:3 says “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.

We are part of God’s story - it shapes us, but we also shape it. But it is within the larger story of God as expressed in Jeremiah 31:3. The story is endless, its eternity. We can put our name into the place of Israel in that verse and it will still hold true.

Our stories go through three stage acts: orientation, disorientation and reorientation. Then, in each of these stages there is an impact. In orientation it is union. In disorientation, evil comes to pull apart that which should be together (diabolos), which leads to a state of separation anxiety - separation from the ground of our being, which gives us coherence and life. This in turn leads to disbelief or unfaith, which results in us taking matters into our own hands instead of leaving it in God’s. This is blasphemy - disunion.

Apartheid was blasphemous - doing unspeakable things in the name of God. We have the option of faith, to put our lives back in the hands of God.

Jesus dies on the cross under Old Testament Law, so the Old Testament really finishes with this. On the cross, Jesus does everything in his power to destroy diabolos. He begins the process of reorientation. However, it is a combination of God’s new kingdom and elements of the Old Testament. He restores what is lost.

In Rembrandt’s “Return of the Prodigal”, one of the Father’s hands is strong, drawing and disciplining, the other is more caressing and securing. Strong yet caring.

Wynand’s perspective of God has changed. God, who starts something new, comes after him with loving kindness. “Drawn you to me”. Hebrew is “mashak” - use my strength to bring you to me, with love, until the good work he has begun in you is complete.

Philippians 1:6 “6being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” And so he is confident of this at least.

Ephesians 2 - God has destroyed the barriers of segregation. There is no upmanship of any type. The walls have been broken down and we can live in union. The Spirit has enabled us to do this, if we open up to Him.

Michelle