A Black Man Is Coming

Sunday, November 2, 2008

“A Black Man is Coming”

Text: Hosea 11: 1 – 11

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

It may have been as a child unable to sleep because your imagination is running wild as a holiday approaches with dreams of sugar pops dancing in your head.

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

It may have been on the night before your wedding as final preparations seemed unfilled and the anxiousness of what could possibly go wrong, as well as all that can go right disrupts your sleep such that counting sheep does you no good.

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

It may have been on the Eve of a long awaited graduation when after many nights of burning the midnight oil the elusive prize is within your grasp, and tomorrow all your family will display their pride as you walk across the stage into a new future.

Have you ever sat of the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

I believe that our ancestors sat on the doorstep of expectancy as they waited for the hope of freedom.

When the Proclamation of Emancipation was read and the dark clouds of slavery and its brutality were being blown away, still the freedom message was delayed for our ancestors in the west, but they met and waited in church basements watching the dawn of a new day as they rang out the past, because for them their legal freedom was finally becoming a reality.

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

In 1968 African Americans sat on the edge of their seats as a preacher from Atlanta stood in the pulpit of Mason Memorial Church of God in Christ in Memphis, Tenn., and painted in their mind's eye what it meant to stand on a mountaintop and to look over the horizon of time and see the Promised Land.

Oh what a beautiful picture – freedom!

Their spirits were lifted but quickly dashed because the next day a sniper bullet ended the melodious voice who had captured the imagination of the world and ignited the fires of freedom in the spirits of people.

To have to wait 40 years is nothing compared to the reality our people have had to wait over 400 years for the singular truth of our Constitution to ring that all men and women are created equal, and that they are endowed with inalienable rights.

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

I know what Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 means to people who for so long have experienced the brutal task of having to make bricks without straw, of having to compete in life’s race from an unfair start, of having to fight every battle for rights that should have been guaranteed, of having to experience the weight of segregation, Jim Crowism, separate but definitely unequal.

I know the symbolism. I know what the accomplishment will mean. I know that people all over the world will perceive that something is happening in America that will send seismic shock waves all over the world. I too feel the source of pride. As a decedent of slaves and free persons that worked long and hard to ensure that their children and grandchildren would one day be able to stand on their own two feet as full citizens of this country.

Is it possible? Is it true that a Black man is coming?

Have you ever sat on the doorstep of expectancy waiting for a hope of a better tomorrow?

If you can sense that feeling,

if your nervous system can experience the tingling,

if your imagination can soar,

if your pride can heighten,

if your mind can grasp the meaning,

the significance,

the awesomeness,

the boldness,

the realization that no longer do we have to have a dream deferred;

then you can sense, then you can understand.

What the ancient Hebrew people felt each time they heard this proclamation: “out of Egypt I will send my son.”

For centuries, they sat on the doorstep waiting for their Moses, waiting for their King David, waiting for their King Solomon, waiting for the liberator, the messiah – the one who would unify Israel and Judah.

Is he the one? Is that the one? Who is the one?

The one who would bring the people back together again and restore to them the prominence that God had promised!

When is a Black man coming to fulfill the prophecy that “out of Egypt, I will send my son”?