Deep River
©
by the Reverend Dr. Byron E. Shafer
(Rutgers,
January 9, 2000; Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Year B;
Renewal
of Baptismal Vows; Holy Communion)
Genesis
1:1–5 (OT, p. 1);
Mark 1:4–11 (NT, p. 35)
(Bibliography: Howard Thurman, Deep River and The Negro
Spiritual Speaks of Life and Death [Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1975];
and
James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues [New York: Seabury Press, 1972])
“Deep
river, my home is over Jordan,
Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.
Oh don’t you want to go to that gospel feast,
That promised land where all is peace?
Oh deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into camp ground.”
These
are the words that will be sung this morning when,
following
this sermon, you come forward by all three aisles
as
part of our ritual of baptismal renewal.
And
they are the words that have been sung here
on
many past Baptism of the Lord Sundays as well.
They
are the words of “Deep River,”
one
of the most beloved of all Negro spirituals,
those
spontaneous outflowings of religious fervor that came
from
the souls of slaves during the era before the Civil War,
some
150 to 200 years ago.
Negro
spirituals are sacred folk songs. As such,
they
were not “composed” in any formal sense of that term.
Rather,
they sprang to life from the deep spiritual passions
that
were fanned to flame when slaves gathered
for
seasons of worship either in a church
or
in the setting of a camp meeting, a camp ground.
“Deep
River,” with its slow, sustained, long-phrased melody,
was
one of the songs of sorrow that nonetheless conveyed
to
all who were weary of heart
the
unmistakable underlying message of hope and faith
in
the ultimate justice of things, in the coming of a time
when
all would be able to cross their River Jordans
and
enter into lands of promise and peace.
In
singing “Deep River,” those who had been
spiritually
and physically exhausted by the vicissitudes of life
experienced,
washing over them,
a
fresh flood of strength and power.
For
“Deep River” preached the gospel implicit in all of the spirituals:
the
good news that “In the eyes of God, you’re a person of worth.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been created in God’s image.
Like
Jesus, you’re a child of God.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been washed in the waters of Jordan.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been filled by the Holy Spirit.
Like
Jesus, you’ll get across to the other side.”
The
slaves of the ante-bellum South derived the raw materials
for
their spirituals from three basic sources:
the
Bible, personal experience, and nature.
And
“Deep River” draws from all three of these sources.
The
image of crossing the River Jordan to enter the Promised Land
comes
from the Old Testament book of Joshua, in which
the
people of Israel, who have escaped slavery in Egypt,
ford
the Jordan near the city of Jericho and for the first time
enter
the promised land “flowing with milk and honey,”
the
land of their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah.
And
in the Negro slaves’ religious imagination
that
Old Testament story of Israel’s crossing of the Jordan
to
reach the Promised Land was closely linked to
the
New Testament story of Jesus’s wading into the Jordan
to
be baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit
as
he embarks on his life’s course—
the
story told in this morning’s lesson from Mark.
Now,
the slaves in the ante-bellum South went on to interpret these
biblical
stories in the light of their own personal experiences.
On
the political and social level, the deep river to be crossed
was
a quite literal body of water located in this physical world.
For
the longed-for home, the beckoning camp ground
that
lay on the other side of that river, was
the
North, the free states that lay beyond the Ohio River,
or
Canada, that nation beyond the St. Lawrence River,
or
Africa, that continent beyond the great ocean.
And
on a second level of experience—the religious—the deep river
was
the waters of baptism,
of
dying to this sorrow-filled physical world
and
of being reborn to the spiritual world.
For
the longed-for home, the beckoning camp ground
that
lay on the other side of that river, was heaven, where
freedom
and equality would include everybody, where
mother
+ father + sister + brother had gone before
and
the company of family would be reunited.
So
on the one hand, spirituals are about
a
longing for liberation in this world;
and
on the other hand, they are also about finding consolation
in
heaven, where, in the end, justice will surely prevail.
For,
the slaves had come to understand
that
life, to draw on an image from nature, is like a river,
that
just as all waters come from the sea and go to the sea,
so,
too, life comes from God and goes to God.
The
source of life is God, and the goal of life is God.
And
the river that flows from God to God,
the
river in which we need to be immersed
if
we are to reach the other side—that river
is
a life filled by the power of the Holy Spirit,
filled
by the power given to us in baptism.
Many
of us here today are, I believe, experiencing exhaustion,
spiritual
and physical exhaustion from the vicissitudes of life.
And
my prayer for us this morning is that during the renewal of
our
baptismal vows and the singing of “Deep River,”
each
of us will experience, washing over us,
a
fresh flood of the Spirit’s power.
And
many of us here today are, I believe, experiencing
doubts
about our self-worth.
So
my other prayer this morning is that during the renewal
of
our baptismal vows and the singing of “Deep River,”
each
of us will hear afresh this good news:
“In
the eyes of God, you’re a person of worth.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been created in God’s image.
Like
Jesus, you’re a child of God.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been washed
in
the waters of Jordan.
Like
Jesus, you’ve been filled
by
the Holy Spirit.
Like
Jesus, you’ll get across
to
the other side.”
So,
I invite us now to join together in renewing our baptismal vows
+
in experiencing afresh the strength and power of the Holy Spirit
that carries us from God to God through the river of life.
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