He Has Seen! Part 3

“He Has Seen!”:
Absalom Jones’ Historic New Year’s Message, Part III

The history of New Year’s Eve “Watch Night” services and of New Year’s Day messages is long and varied, carried out in white churches and black churches. In African American churches, a major part of that history traces back to the Rev. Absalom Jones.

After providing sustaining care, Rev. Jones next explains God’s healing involvement in the African American plight. “. . . in this situation, they were not forgotten by the God of their fathers, and the Father of the human race. Though, for wise reason, he delayed to appear in their behalf for several hundred years, yet he was not indifferent to their sufferings. Our text tells us that he saw their afflictions, and heard their cry: his eye and his ear were constantly open to their complaint: every tear they shed was preserved, and every groan they uttered was recorded, in order to testify, at a future day, against the authors of their oppressions.”[i]

Trust His Heart

Do you detect Jones’ underlying message? God’s delay in rescuing the Israelites and his delay in rescuing African Americans are part of his wise and caring plan, no matter how inscrutable that plan may appear to human eyes.

Next, with stirring imagery, Jones describes the personal nature of God’s healing presence. “But our text goes further: it describes the judge of the world to be so much moved, with what he saw and what he heard, that he rises from his throne—not to issue a command to the armies of angels that surround him to fly to the relief of his suffering children—but to come down from heaven in his own person, in order to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians. Glory to God for this precious record of his power and goodness.”[ii]

Christian Healing Hope

Jones personifies historic healing. For over two thousand years, Christian healing has underscored the encouragement that comes through enlightened eyes that see God at work behind life’s miseries and mysteries. Its practitioners have understood that when life stinks, our perspective shrinks. Therefore, they have diligently listened for God’s eternal story of deliverance. They have asked, in the midst of messes, “What is God up to in this?” They have worked with suffering people to co-create faith stories and Exodus narratives so that people can rejoice in the truth that “It’s possible to hope.”

When all seemed dark and hopeless, they communicated that “God is good. He’s good all the time!” Healing soul physicians enabled their spiritual friends to say with the Apostle Paul, “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9b). They celebrated the resurrection and raised the roof because of the empty tomb.

They have also emphasized faith eyes or spiritual eyes by using scriptural truths to enlighten people to enter new dimensions of spiritual insight and to empower them to cross the threshold toward new levels of spiritual maturity. If sustaining brought surviving, then healing produced thriving. Even when situations could not change, attitudes and character could. Historic healers followed a biblical sufferology (theology of suffering) that taught that crisis provided a door of opportunity which could produce forward gain from victim to victor. Through creative suffering, they placed themselves and their spiritual friends on God’s anvil to be master-crafted according to his perfect will.

[i] Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering, p. 34, from Foner, Lift Every Voice, p. 75.
[ii] Ibid.

He Has Seen! Part II

“He Has Seen!”:
Absalom Jones’ Historic New Year’s Message, Part II

The history of New Year’s Eve “Watch Night” services and of New Year’s Day messages is long and varied, carried out in white churches and black churches. In African American churches, a major part of that history traces back to the Rev. Absalom Jones.

He Has Heard!

God has not only seen; he has also heard. Rev. Jones preaches, “Inhuman wretches! though You have been deaf to their cries and shrieks, they have been heard in Heaven. The ears of Jehovah have been constantly open to them. He has heard the prayers that have ascended from the hearts of his people; and he has, as in the case of his ancient and chosen people the Jews, come down to deliver our suffering countrymen from the hands of the oppressors.”[i] The suffering Jews and the suffering African Americans are one people of God.

He Came Down!

Four times Pastor Jones repeats the phrase, “He came down.” Healing hope. God sustains and he saves. He climbs in the casket and he rolls the stone away leaving an empty tomb. He sees, and he comes down.

What worship response is appropriate? Celebrate the empty tomb! “O! let us give thanks unto the Lord: let us call upon his name, and make known his deeds among the people. Let us sing psalms unto him and talk of all his wondrous works.[ii]

[i] Kellemen, Beyond the Suffering, p. 226.
[ii] Ibid., p. 226.

He Has Seen!

“He Has Seen!”:
Absalom Jones’ Historic New Year’s Message, Part I

The history of New Year’s Eve “Watch Night” services and of New Year’s Day messages is long and varied, carried out in white churches and black churches. In African American churches, a major part of that history traces back to the Rev. Absalom Jones.

A New Year’s Day Message

Absalom Jones was born in slavery on November 6, 1746, in Sussex, Delaware. At age sixteen he moved to Philadelphia, and by age thirty-eight he was able to purchase his freedom. Along with Richard Allen, he became a lay preacher for the African American members of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church. By 1794, he was ordained a deacon in the African Episcopal Church, and in 1804 he was ordained a priest.

On January 1, 1808, in Philadelphia’s St. Thomas’s African Episcopal Church, Jones preached a sermon entitled “A Thanksgiving Sermon on Account of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade.” The sermon parallels American slavery, the bondage of the Jews in Egypt, and God’s personal and powerful Exodus rescue of His people.

Jones begins his message by reading Exodus 3:7-8, “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.” Commenting on this passage, Jones first highlights God’s sustaining care for Israel. He then relates the historical Exodus narrative to current African American life on the basis of God’s unchanging nature.

“The history of the world shows us, that the deliverance of the children of Israel from their bondage, is not the only instance, in which it has pleased God to appear in behalf of oppressed and distressed nations, as the deliverer of the innocent, and of those who call upon his name. He is as unchangeable in his nature and character, as he is in his wisdom and power. The great and blessed event, which we have this day met to celebrate, is a striking proof, that the God of heaven and earth is the same, yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”[i]

He Has Seen: Paying Attention to the Earthly Story of Suffering

In classic sustaining style, Rev. Jones shows that God has been watching every event of their earthly story. “He has seen the affliction of our countrymen, with an eye of pity.”[ii] To emphasize how important it is to pay attention to the earthly story, Jones presents an outline of African American history hauntingly similar to mine in Beyond the Suffering: capture, middle passage, auction block sale, enslavement, separation from family, work from sunup to sundown, deprivation of food, clothing, and shelter, torture of the body, and withholding of religion from the soul.

Jones prefaces each point with the repeated phrase concerning God, “He has seen.” Thirteen times. Can you hear it? Feel it? Imagine it? Place yourself in the congregation.

“He has seen.” “Oh, yeah!” “He has seen.” “Preach it!” “He has seen.” “Come on!” “He has seen.” “Glory!” “He has seen.” “Yes, he has!” “He has seen.” Clapping. “He has seen.” Standing. “He has seen.” Swaying. “He has seen.” Hands raised. “He has seen.” Shouting. “He has seen.” “Amen!” “He has seen.” Tears streaming. “He has seen.” Kneeling.

The God Who Sees

Like Hagar in the wilderness, Absalom Jones, with faith-eyes sees the God who sees us. In our lives, do we believe in a God who sees our affliction even when it appears He has turned His eyes from us and turned a deaf ear to us?

When God sees, what does He do? In Part II of this mini-series, Rev. Jones will continue his New Year’s message and answer that question for us.

[i] Kellemen and Edwards, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, p. 225, quoted in Warner, p. 540.
[ii] Ibid.