Oh! The power of Prayer! The prayers that knit them together into communities, crafting culture and passing along traditions from the womb until their temporary tombs.
Oh the power of prayer collected in tears, assuaging fears, producing a sustaining supernatural strength even as they suffered under the brutality of oppression.
They recognized somehow the wonderful, awe inspiring power and privilege of prayer.
And this too compels us to celebrate black history and the roots of prayer that run deeply within it.
The residents and the joy, the resistance and the grace.
It’s the celebration of the people who persevered against insurmountable odds and through their prayers and faith, they overcame knowing why the caged bird sings while remaining anchored to the truth of who christ is in us.
Oh what a wonder! The unconditional affirmations of our ancestors in heartfelt authentic unpretentious prayer.
Line by line, word by word, sometimes in a mumble or a murmur in just a hum or a song and many times it was just a grown that reminds us and carries the notion forward to us that we have overcome in the spiritual realm long before we overcome in the physical one.
Look closely and you’ll see that these ancestors were spiritual soldiers really who taught us that we could be free before we were free.
They sat at his feet anchored in his presence somehow abiding in his peace.
When peace was really nowhere to be found.
They knew that what was being inflicted upon them try as their captors might to tell them that this dehumanization was aligned with God’s purpose and design.
Somehow they knew this was not a reflection of the one true living god, in whose image they had been made.
And it is the same knowing this same sacred spirit inspired awareness that comes to us when we are people of prayer.
Oh what a wonder in our souls.
It’s the power of Harriet Tubman, praying, I’m gonna hold steady on you and you Lord have got to see me through.
Oh sister Tubman, We thank you for your faithful and powerful prayer or it’s mary McLeod Bethune calling out and saying Lord, we know that this world is filled with discordant notes but help us father to unite anyway, our efforts that we might join in one harmonious symphony of peace and brotherhood and justice and equality Oh sister Bethune, we thank you for praying for us and W. E. B du bois, who prayed?
Dear Lord, mighty causes are calling us like the freeing of women, the training of Children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty.
All of these are calling us and more. But they call with the voice that will mean for us.
Work and sacrifice and sometimes death.
So father will you mercifully grant to us the spirit of Esther so that we will say I am going in to see the King and if I perish, I perish, thank you brother.
Do voice for praying courageous prayers.
And in later years, Coretta scott King saying with authority, eternal and everlasting God, who are the father of all mankind.
As we turn aside from the hurly burly of everyday living may, our hearts and souls our very spirits be lifted upward to the for it is from the and the alone that all our blessings come.
We thank you Sister Mother King for praying for us. Can you imagine how many more mothers and grandmothers?
Fathers and grandfathers stood firm in prayer beside their loved ones bedsides and broken bodies deep into the night?
Or on their knees. Early in the morning. What kind of people was this?
And what kind of access to divine power had they discovered that we need to rediscover now because if you pause for a moment and take a deep breath of gratitude during this black history month, you’ll realize that despite the difficulties we may still face and despite the justice that is yet to be realized despite the equity that we still press on to see received by every segment of society.
Don’t miss this. We are the answer to our ancestor’s prayers. We are their wildest dreams fulfilled.
They prayed for this.
They prayed for us, you and me here and now worshiping on this sunday morning without reservation and without fear in freedom.
They ask God for this and maybe just maybe if we’ll prioritize prayer just as they did then future generations will reap the benefits that this sacred privilege will set forth for them too.
Our prayers in the incomparable name of jesus christ will be the incubators of blessings for our sons and daughters and our grandsons and granddaughters.
So brothers and sisters yes work put your hand to the plow and work strategically and intentionally purposefully to continue to impact and affect change but do not overlook the power of your prayers endure in prayer overcome in prayer, celebrate in prayer, rejoice in prayer, build up in prayer, bind and loose in prayer, stand firm in prayer, push back the schemes, employees and the plots of darkness in prayer.
It was the way then and it is still the only way now father we thank you for the legacy for the lesson for the privilege and the power in the history of Black prayer.