Death + Blood

On 3rd June, we celebrate the Uganda Martyrs; 45 young men in their twenties and teens who were murdered for refusing to denounce their faith in Christ. Pilgrims trek hundreds of kilometers to their site of death annually in remembrance of their sacrifice. I saw many on foot pass near our home in Naalya, on their way to Namugongo.

Namugongo, their place of death, wasn’t named until after them. It is said by ancient folk that the believers were tied to horses that dragged them incessantly upon their backs for distances. After some kilometers, they were asked, ‘Will you denounce your faith?’

‘No’, they’d reply. Others just said, ‘Why not kill me instead—for whatever you do, I’ll still believe.’ So some were killed along the way.

‘Na’ in Ganda language means ‘by’. ‘Mugongo’ means ‘back’. The full name ‘Namugongo’ means ‘by back’. Sources say, the locals used to ask how they got to that place, and those who knew replied, ‘by back…’ (being dragged by horses), and that is how Namugongo came to be.

The King then, Mwanga, 18 years of age, inexperienced, suspected that this batch of christians were plotting to overthrow him. With extra rituals like holy communion came the suspicion of cannibalism. ‘Round ‘em up and execute them’, the teenager commanded, hence the dragging and eventual burning of the martyrs in straw!

While enroute, blood was being shed. Their backs were bleeding. God brought my attention to the first time death happens and what the blood that oozed did. We all know the story of Abel and Cain. The law of first mention when studying the Bible helps us to apply the meaning of something in the context of when it first appeared to everywhere else that that particular thing appears.

The New Testament defines unbelief as sin because the very first sin wasn’t death, but Eve failing to believe that God had indeed said if she ate of the fruit of the tree of good and evil, she’d die.’

Thus, with the same method, I used the Cain-Abel story in Genesis 4:8-12. After Abel had been killed, God found his killer and said ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now, YOU ARE CURSED FROM THE EARTH that has swallowed your brother’s blood. No longer will the ground yield good crops to you no matter how hard you try! You’ll be a homeless wanderer and a vagabond on the earth.’

‘Why did the earth curse Cain?’ I asked God. He led me through Leviticus 17:11,14 ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood…’ and Numbers 35:33 ‘…no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of HIM who shed it.’ In my extra research of the Jewish culture, murder was almost unforgivable, for it was believed only God (who gave the life) had the right to take it.

Now since the earth is the entire globe, it reads and sorts of deciphers the VOICE of the blood shed upon it. When Jesus’ blood fell upon the earth, it was crying, ‘For God so loves the world. He has sent me so that no man may perish but have everlasting life, if they only believe on me.’ The earth then sorts of amplifies ‘that atonement’…that voice, and either sees to its cursing or its blessing.

Jesus’ blood was pronouncing blessing. Abel’s was pronouncing a curse over Cain. It’s like Abel’s voice after death was crying, ‘May the earth reject you Cain. Especially that you were a farmer. May it not yield the fruit of the seed you’ve planted. May you be a vagabond (a person who wanders without a home or job).’

Now the earth translated that and passed it on to Cain. Why? Earth is the mother of flesh; because man came from DUST, and dust is earth. So, as it receives the dead body of innocent blood, it translates the wish. Human blood cries for vengeance while animal blood leads to covenant. Now Christ’s blood is both human, and animal (Lamb of God) — speaking God’s vengeance on sin and also causing us to come into covenant with God, and ‘cry’, since animals have no power to speak to make their wish known.

When Abel’s blood cried, it asked God to comfort his mother. Later Eve receives a child named Seth, whose name means ‘for God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel’

When Stephen was martyred in the New Testament, his blood cried ‘if they’d only receive the revelation that I have of Jesus’ and no wonder Jesus later shows up among one of his stoners; Saul, who turns into the great Apostle Paul.

The earth watched and bore the burden of Stephen’s blood’s cry. Jesus’ blood caused the earth to allow for conversion of billions! It cried, ‘death you have lost your sting…’ then death reacted by opening all graves and returning life to all that were dead that day. No wonder there was an earthquake in the earth. The voice of Jesus’ blood was louder than all other bloods. It was not as silent as Abel’s (Heb 12:24). It carried global significance, for this was the blood of the very own person who created the earth. It had to find ways of honoring Him like it had never done.

Like earlier said, human blood says ‘tit for tat’. Since the life of its owner is in it, the earth says, ‘since the people have killed you, yet they have no power to take your life, how would you like them to be punished (or brought to justice?) That’s when Jesus said ‘Let them lift me up from the earth, and I’ll draw all men to me’ (John 12:32).

He didn’t curse us like Abel did Cain, but had mercy on all our ancestors—his killers and all their descendants (which is us). And remember what Numbers said, ‘only the owner of the blood reserved the right to pass atonement or ‘judgement’… and Jesus’ was that you may become co-heir with Him.

O what love!

And since the blood is the life of the animal, this gives more reason for you to take the ‘blood of communion’, for the more you take it, the more you drink the earth-shaking life of Jesus.

You may wonder where I am going with all this. It’s back to where I started our trip with you: to the Uganda Martyrs. It makes sense now that thousands trek from far and wide to go to Namugongo. The martyrs’ death and blood was like many seeds. Into the earth they drowned, and then sprouted forests and fruit. Forests of more believers in Christ.

They were born again of the word of God (1 Pet 1:23) just like Jesus. And the seed is the word (Luk 8:11) , and whether they knew it or not, their seed fell on good soil bringing forth a hundredfold. No wonder Uganda has God in its motto. No wonder Uganda was the last country to report covid deaths, and still has the lowest deaths of the same…

The martyrs’ bloods cried different things, one of which I believe was, that Uganda would be a disciple of Christ as the great commission states ‘…making disciples of all nations.’ (The keyword being ‘of’ and not ‘in’)

We are enjoying peace and freedom that comes with Christ because of the blood shed 136 years ago. Their blood cried that their persecutors would turn to Christ. I do hope they did. We’ve heard of the Eastern African Revival, and we see many God’s Generals rising in Uganda, and the price these young men paid is missed by the millions of us. Heed today, knowing that you’re enjoying a covenant with God as a country because of these brave souls, just like you’re enjoying a covenant with God as an individual because of what Christ did.

Uganda could have been Iraq! But O the Martyrs! The schools could have had no righteous foundations, but we see the College High schools being built on Christ as foundation by the early missionaries. This is the cry of blood shed long before your grandfather was born. There are so many unvoiced blessings I deem these boys asked God to bless this nation with! Now revival is being birthed in Uganda, like what no eye has seen nor ear heard. These boys prayed to see that this would happen. And if they had no children to inherit the answer to this prayer, the earth heard, and kept it, and pronounced their burden over to us;

That is why I travail in writing, laboring the depth of something I might only be seeing in part. In visions we see Pentecost fires spread like a mushroom bomb to all the world, hailing from the heart and city of Uganda. Maybe some of these young men had received the gifts of tongues. Maybe some didn’t know what that was. But somehow, the Holy Spirit caused them to intercede something so great for this nation, and it’s going to turn the world upside down!

Instead of the earth withholding its increase, it yielded both to the cry of these men, and to the physical prayers as well. The fertility in the soils of Uganda, and the great greens, that’s just one dimension of the many prayers of these saints, and now you wonder why things grow all by themselves here…

Someone died while they prayed that you might see these things. Wealthy men who will break the backbone of poverty in Africa are rising in Uganda now. Some boys died that this might come to pass! And their blood will continue weeping until Christ returns, and each of their groans shall be brought to pass by the translations of the earth, just like it did, the curse upon Cain.

Their blood impacted the life of this boy writing to you now on 6th June. 60 years after their death, my grandfather was born. He was named Matthew. 84 years after their death, my dad was born. He was named after one of them: ANDREW KAGGWA Kyamanywa. I discovered this last Friday when my uncle called me and told me about it! I was overwhelmed! It must have been God stirring the miracle unseen.

111 years after the 1886 massacre, I was born; and named Simon. Three generations with names of the very disciples of Christ. And I do not know if my grandfather preached… I remember my dad raising me in the catholic way. And even if they didn’t proclaim much, according to my knowledge, here I am, having inherited subtly something passed on by each of them, bearing a burden as old as 186 years! And the voice of their blood has kept me sleepless for the last few nights…

And that voice wants you to know, that God is madly in love with you. That He has great plans for you to prosper you. That you’re forgiven by the means of the blood of their master. That you do not have to settle for less. That you’d enjoy better salvation today, where they would not. That you’d be free to proclaim the goodness of God in the land of the living without the incessant persecution they underwent — and that it would not be a crime to believe on the one true God in this your nation!

Because of their sacrifice, we as a nation get to partake of the inheritance of Abraham by adoption regardless of our gentility. And for this, I give thanks. We’d have been a moslem nation! We’d have been a pagan nation!

I’m also challenged to give my all for the gospel of Christ. Man, we are eating where others died! And perhaps God was thinking about you — your salvation you Ugandan — and allowed their blood to spill that the earth would demand for you — you dust!

I only pray; next time Martyrs’ Day comes around, that you comprehend how priceless this sacrifice was. 😩