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| "Take My Hand" Harriet Tubman Mural Painting by Michael Rosato |
"God's time is always near.
He set the North Star
in the heavens;
He gave me strength in my limbs;
He meant I should be free."
+ Harriet Tubman,
Prophetic Witness,
1822-1913 A.D.
As we see the season of Advent on the horizon, Emmaus City Church is seeking to soak in stories of people throughout the past millenia who have followed Jesus, using Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place as our resource. As these dear sisters and brothers throughout time and space sought to reflect the humility and holiness of Christ, so do we in the upcoming year: "Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness — without it no one will see the Lord." + Hebrews 12:14 Here are recent highlights: When we handed these books out to our congregation, this is part of the note we included inside each one: This might seem at first to be a peculiar Advent devotional. But saints often are peculiar people who stand out in a particular time and place. In fact, the times when saints shine the most are times of darkness. They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light, which darkness cannot overcome. Advent begins in the dark. And we, as part of Jesus’ Church, are called to live as Advent people who anticipate Jesus’ coming into our darkness today to overcome it. Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming and will come again to take away the darkness forever and be our eternal Light. That hope is what saints have embodied as our sisters and brothers across time, ethnicities, Christian traditions, nationalities, and more. As we step into this next year, our prayer is that we will shine all the more with the holy light of Christ in us and through us. And we pray that we “being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love.” After all, “the Father has enabled us to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves.” This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.
Harriet Tubman No Little People Harriet Tubman was a visionary and courageous herald of freedom who relied on God for her strength and inspiration. She was born enslaved in Maryland and, from an early age, was subjected to routine cruelty from slaveholders. At age twelve, she received a severe head injury when a slave master, intending to hit another person with an iron weight, missed his target and hit Harriet instead. She suffered from migraines and seizures for the rest of her life. As a teenager, she began to receive visions and strange dreams. Many dismissed these visions as merely side effects of her injury, but Tubman believed them to be revelations from God, who was raising her up as a liberator of His people. Tubman had heard white pastors preach that slaves should be passive and accept their conditions, not matter their cruel circumstances. Tubman was illiterate but intimately acquainted with the teachings of the Bible and knew that these sermons did not describe the God of Scripture, who delivered the Hebrew slaves out of their bondage in Egypt. Sustained by her faith, Tubman escaped slavery and fled to Philadelphia in 1849. She then made thirteen heroic trips back to Maryland, personally smuggling over seventy enslaved individuals to freedom (some accounts estimate as many as three hundred were liberated). Tubman brought so many people to freedom that abolitionist allies called her the "conductor of the Underground Railroad," and Tubman was proud to say, "I never lost a passenger." Those who followed her to freedom simply called her Moses. A fellow abolitionist noted that Harriet "talked with God, and He talked with her every day of her life." Tubman said God was her foundation and guiding light through the many dangers she faced. During the Civil War, she was a nurse, scout, spy, and military leader. In her later years, she became an advocate for the rights and dignity of women and the elderly and served devotedly in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. Scripture "It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers." + Deuteronomy 7:7-8 Meditation: No Little People Most of the people who went on to do great things for God were unlikely heroes. Jacob was a liar. Moses was a lousy public speaker. David was the youngest kid in the family. Jonah was a racist. Peter was a blue-collar fisherman. Mary Magdalene was tormented by demons. Timothy was too young. And yet these are the people God chooses. In Deuteronomy 7:7-8, we have a record of the Lord saying to His people that He didn't choose them because they were big and powerful, but rather because He loved them. God loves to use those that the world deems too small, too weak, too insignificant to make a difference. As Francis Schaeffer wrote: Consider the mighty ways in which God used a dead stick of wood ... Though we are limited and weak in talent, physical energy and pyschological strength, we are not less than a stick of wood. But as the rod of Moses had to become the rod of God, so that which is me must become the me of God. Then, I can become useful in God's hands. The Scripture emphasizes that much can come from little if the little is J.R.R. Tolkien echoes this theme in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which it is the hobbits — the small, peace-loving creatures — that bring down the mighty powers of darkness. Harriet Tubman was an unlikely choice. If you were looking for a liberator to lead a subversive movement to overthrow evil and free the oppressed, wouldn't you pick someone with deep financial resources and, say, an army? Would you pick a slave girl with head trauma? Yet the Lord chose her and used her. And because she was chosen, she was no longer just Harriet, but (to use the phraseology of Francis Schaeffer) the Harriet of God. And this new Harriet was not little, but a giant. You, dear friend, are not too little, too poor, too stupid, too lost, too messed up, too anything to be used by God if you are willing to consecrate yourself — that is, give your whole self over — to Him. Prayer Almighty and everlasting God, You kindled the flame of Your love in the heart of Your servant Harriet Tubman to manifest Your compassion and mercy to the poor and the persecuted. Grant to us, Your humble servants, a faith and power of love, that we who give thanks for her righteous zeal may profit by her example, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. pgs. 51-53 The Celebrity & The Saint The celebrity demands, "Look at me!" The saint whispers, "Look at God." The celebrity says, "Try to be like me, but you'll never be like me." The saint says, "Why would anyone want to be like me? Who has God made you?" The celebrity is ever ascending, climbing the tower of Babel to the double-platinum throne. The saint is ever descending, saying, "Please have my seat, I insist." The celebrity offers you everything you want but can never have. The saint offers you the thing you fear but will redeem your soul. The celebrity is a Ferrari screaming down the highway with music blaring. The saint is the freshwater creek beside the highway that almost nobody ever notices and is nearly impossible to hear over the roar of traffic. Yet the water murmurs as it wanders over stones and around oak roots. It is not silent. + Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta, Our Church Speaks Bonus Trailer: Bonus Song: Additional Advent Resources: Next Post: Many blessings of peace and presence, Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan |
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