'THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER" SERMON

"THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER" Sermon delivered at the U-Baptist Church, Kansas City, Missouri , Rev. Gary Cornelius Jones, Pastor, by Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman April 12, 2015 Expressions of praise and gratitude . Self identification and wife. Prayer. Good day, U-Church! God bless you! We love to celebrate ! Don't we? Birthdays, baptisms, graduations, Christmas , New Year's, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving , Easter and Christmas . We just love to celebrate! Today, we celebrate our freedom from slavery. We call it THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PASSOVER. The African American Passover. Repeat that! Amen! Let's celebrate that! Give yourselves a hand-clap! Why ? Because you, each and every one of you, children and babies too--represent the ancestors that produced us. Genetically , historically, culturally. You are the ancestors. They live through you! You live through them, though you were "yet incomplete" to quote 139th Psalm. Therefore, you also represent the ancestors that freed us from slavery. That's right! You and you and you ! 150 years ago on April 9, 1865, OUR FREEDOM WAR ended. It ended when the South surrendered to the North. When Lee submitted to Grant. When the bullets stopped flying and when chattel slavery was destroyed! Then, 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Union Army. 25,000 sailors fought in the Union Navy. While millions of "Contrabands"--all the rest of us self-liberated ex-slaves--helped out in too many ways to mention. We preserved these United States of America ! We & black troops saved this country from defeat! They saved Lincoln. We saved Lincoln. Lincoln did not save us nor free us! Bullets, blood, bombs, bayonets, and an undying belief in Almighty God saved us then & now! Now, you may recall the Bible story about the ten lepers that beseeched Jesus Christ for a cure. He told them to go to the priests, and on the way they were healed! Healed on the way! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2017:11-19 Leprosy is a frightfully treacherous skin disease. These 10 victims were outcasts. On top of that, this 1 man that came back to say "thank you, Lord!" was a double-outcast, to the Jews, being a "Samaritan" like the woman at the well to whom Jesus gave "living water" after she had given him drinking water! Like he who came to the rescue of the man beaten down, stripped, and robbed on the Jericho Road; whom the priest and the Levite passed by ! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2010:25-37 That one Samaritan is like us today! We have come back to say "Thank you Lord for freeing us from slavery!" Though still outcasts in our own land, we're still climbing ! Thank you Lord! "Thank you Lord for helping us to pick up our bed and walk!" "Thank you Lord for enabling us to Passover from slavery to freedom!" From Jim Crow to the front row! From the outhouse to the White House! Thank you Lord! Thank you Lord! Never mind what others may say or do! Or what they may not say or do! We gonna praise his name! Other Baptists may not praise this day; other Methodists may not praise this day: other Holiness and Sanctified may not praise this day! Neither Catholic , Muslim, Buddhist, Baha'i , or Jew may not praise this day! But, whatsoever the case may be: This one little group of African Americans have come to the U-Church today to say thank you Lord! Say thank you lord! For carrying U.S. Over! For passing us over! The fact of our freedom matters greatly to us! Thus, we've come to celebrate ! We come to praise his name! For our blessed & ongoing African American Passover ! Amen! #30