Page 26 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 3 2025

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

TAKING A BEATING

B Y PETER S T OFFBERG

ere you well behaved at school, or did you
push the boundaries? Can you remember
Wgetting caught and properly punished? I have
an especially vivid memory of that.
I don’t remember what I did wrong, but I was in grade
eight and new in school. My older sister had been there
a while, and was in matric. Her class just happened to be
lined up and waiting for the teacher to whom I had been
sent for corrective attention, no fun for a grade eight still
drowning in a new uniform.
The matric boys taunted me into a state of complete and
utter panic, while the girls destroyed any last shred of
dignity with their overly dramatic and insincere chorus of
“ah shame!”
When the teacher finally called me into his class, it was a
relief. That was, until he started talking. He was a solidly
built man with a kind face, calm voice and a cane which
he affectionately referred to as “Flesh Hungry” (roughly
translated from Afrikaans). A sense of inevitable pain
descended, and suddenly being outside seemed the
better option. If only it was an option.
The multi-coloured welts and bruises inflicted by the
cane cleared up long before the pain of the whole ordeal
did. I still think about it today.
ON SITE SUNDAY SERVICES @ 9h30
As Good Friday approaches, I think back on that day
and imagine a different scenario. One that helps me www.familychurch.online
understand Easter. DAINFERN COLLEGE AUDITORIUM
I imagine standing in that classroom with my fate
confirmed and knowing I deserve what’s coming. Ice
cold fear washes through me. As the teacher draws back me, to show me a better way of doing things, to keep me
the cane, he’s interrupted by a knock. The door opens from coming back here. I gratefully accept. He smiles,
behind me, and the deafening silence, from those lined and he tells me to go.
up outside, is interrupted by whispers of disbelief.
What? Really? Just go free? I look at the teacher, his
Someone enters and quietly speaks to the teacher. Then, calm expression confirms it, and I leave hurriedly. As
he stoops beside me and tells me he doesn’t want me I close the door, I hear the rush of the cane and its
doing the stuff that landed me here. He offers to help repeated impact on someone else. Someone who chose
to take my place.
At Easter we remember that Jesus took more than a
beating for us. He took the death penalty. Sin is sin
and must be punished, God is just. But in His love, God
became flesh, in the person of Jesus, and took that
punishment for us, so that we can be free. Free to love
Him, free to learn from Him and free to become more like
Him. How awesome is He?

24 DPL issue 3 2025