Romans 5:1-8 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. 6For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. 8But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
The wind blew cold on the night of December 31, 1862. Across the Southern States, enslaved persons gathered in churches and slave quarters. They gathered in churches confident that the hope for freedom kindled in their hearts by the Holy Spirit would lead to their political freedom. Only a few months before on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. January 1, 1863 would be the first day of their freedom. Frederick Douglas wrote of that day: It is a day for poetry and song, a new song. These cloudless skies, this balmy air, this brilliant sunshine . . . are in harmony with the glorious morning of liberty about to dawn up on us. When the clocks struck midnight, when the toll of the bells signaled the death toll of slavery, hundreds of thousands throughout the South became free persons.
You can well imagine that white southern slave holders did not immediately free their slaves. Only when the Northern armies entered into the Southern states and enforced the Emancipation of slaves were the prayers of countless generations of enslaved person finally heard. Texas lies farthest west among the Confederate states.
Only on June 19, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, did General Gordon Granger and his northern troops enter Galveston, Texas and proclaimed that “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free….”
On the first anniversary of General Granger’s proclamation, the first celebration of Juneteenth, an abbreviation of June Nineteenth, happened in Texas. Two and a half years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation were the last slaves in the Confederacy freed. Not until December 18, 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, was slavery finally abolished.
As you look at the pictures of those first celebrations of Juneteenth, can you wonder about the ways the people felt about their new found freedom? Do you remember that those enslaved women, men and children listened to the same bible passages you heard. I think of the passage we heard from Romans today: “We also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
You can well imagine the sufferings of slavery. Not only the humiliation of being bought and sold, of the punishment for infractions, the backs whipped and cut open, the families enduring the sale of children ripped from the arms of their mothers. Young light skinned women were valued as objects of sexual exploitation and were sold for four or five times the value of field workers.
When you go home, google pictures of the first celebration of Juneteenth. You can find one on the copy of today’s sermon. If you look deeply into the faces of these women and men, celebrating Juneteenth in 1880, you can see the growth of endurance leading to character leading to hope. Endurance leading to character leading to hope.
When we hear news reports coming out of Minneapolis about a police force run amuck with prejudice toward persons of color, where is our hope? When we see black faces of persons killed in mass shootings placed on our altar, where is our hope? When we know the fears of our black and brown sisters and brothers of being stopped while driving, the fears of mothers and fathers for their children, where is our hope?
Deeper than the damage of institutional racism, deeper than the threat of mass shootings, deeper than the fear for our children’s safety we have a hope, a hope that does not disappoint us. We have hope for we know the God who is on our side. From that first Juneteenth in 1865 we have a God who is fighting for freedom. We have a God who is overturning institutional racism with justice. We have a God who is awakening consciences to ban the weapons killing our sisters and brothers of color. We have a God who is bringing right relationships to law enforcement agencies.
Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Listen to that Holy Spirit stirring in your heart. Follow the lead of that Holy Spirit directing you to work for justice even in our communities. Do not let your heart be overwhelmed by suffering. God has planted hope deep in your heart. Do all you can to keep hope alive.