Not for sensitive readers.

There are stories from the past I don’t want to hear, much less write about, but this is one we need to tackle. Daisy de Melker poisoned two of her husbands and her son with arsenic. All three of them died a terrible death.

I read on Netwerk24 what Jans Rautenbach said about Daisy:

“She screamed like a pig …” She had tied herself up in a bundle and screamed, causing the women guards to call the night shift to help. When they got hold of her arms, they dragged her like a bag of potatoes from the Female Section, which was at one corner, down the corridor, through the enormous square, and down the next corridor.

 They had to drag her up the stairs to the gallows. The executioner had tied a new, longer rope, and hanged her in that bundle she had gotten herself in, screaming all the while.

Rautenbach continued to describe the way things were usually done in Pretoria Central Prison at that time:

Minister, pastor and priest kneel with those who ask. Pray for God to carry you through the gates of darkness. Where to no one knows.

The executioner comes next. He measures your height and weighs you to see exactly how long and thick the rope must be to snap your neck.

He hangs seven at a time. You stand on the two white footprints under your waiting rope. He comes from behind the line and slips each person’s rope over their head and pushes the lever down. It takes about 30 seconds from stepping in to hanging. He’s a master in his subject. Small, friendly old man.

I’m sick to my stomach. It’s not a nice picture. Then Rautenbach also paints a picture of the condemned:

Their court files describe and preserve photographs of mind-blowing atrocities. Yet they continue frantically searching for an escape from a maze of law and justice. Keep begging for mercy. No matter how thick the blood flows from the dossier.

Actually, that should’ve happened to all of us. In a way, we had to take our punishment, maybe not be hanged, but be killed as punishment for all our sins, for when we didn’t do the will of God, aren’t doing it now, or won’t be doing it in future.

Yet, because Jesus has already borne our punishment, we can escape this death. How?

¹⁰Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.

Scripture
James 4:7-12

Reflection
How do you feel?
What is going through your mind?
How low can you bow down?

Prayer
Lord! I really don’t feel well. My stomach is turning. Once again, I realise what Jesus came to do for me. I bow low and lower and lower before You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.