“What a wretched man I am… who will rescue me from this body of death?” – Paul of Tarsus
This is arguably one of the most poignant moments in all the Bible.
I’ve heard a story told that in the time of Paul, the author of this vivid portrait, when prisoners of the Roman Empire were deployed to work in the fields, they would be chained in pairs by their ankles. So, when one prisoner sought to escape, they would have to persuade the other to come with, making an escape difficult.
If one of them should die during the escape, the other would literally be chained to the body of death, hence this imagery in Paul’s writing.
I can’t think of a more vivid portrait of where South Africa is at right now. The ruling party, the people’s chosen partner for the past two decades in our escape from the grotesque apartheid system, is dead. And we are chained to this body of death.
Oh, South Africa, a wretched people we are. Who shall free us from this body of death?