Nobody knows the trouble they saw, perhaps least of all an affluent, mostly white suburban church, yet its pastor said he believes American slaves and their spirituals are perfect guides for the Easter journey.
It begins with Jesus’ bondage and suffering but leads Christians into hope, freedom and joy.
“I want Easter to be about more than a 60-minute service on Sunday followed by colored eggs,” said Senior Pastor Brad Strait of Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in Englewood.
His congregation sang slave songs all during Lent. For Holy Week they filled their sanctuary with 13 stations built on the words of these African-American spirituals.
“I’m troubled, I’m troubled. I’m troubled in mind,” as one song goes. “If Jesus don’t help me, I surely will die. When ladened with troubles and burdened with grief, to Jesus in secret I’ll go for relief.”
The stations were places to stop, reflect or pray with inspiration from slaves’ words and biblical motifs, through imagery and mostly simple props, such as heavy chains, a whip and mirrors. But there was even a River Jordan of deep blue, rock-lined plastic winding through the pews.
Strait called this small journey from station to station the Hope Walk.
“The world is so noisy; to find 45 minutes to come think about life, its burdens and experiences — it almost always moves people to tears,” Strait said.
Zac Hicks, associate pastor of worship and liturgy, discovered he has a favorite spiritual.
“There’s something very inspiring and humbling about ‘Ain’t Got Time to Die,’ about milking every ounce out of life no matter how difficult it is,” Hicks said. “Everybody seems touched by it. At this time in our cultural life there is (worry and sorrow) to tap into. Some of our idealistic bubbles have burst. But it can’t hold a candle to how the slaves were treated and what they lost, felt or thought.”
In the week before Easter, Cherry Creek Presbyterian’s cavernous sanctuary, dimly lit, was full of dark and disturbing images. Three big elevated screens showed flickering black-and- white pictures of shackles, barbed wire, shattered glass, twisted steel, weapons, tombs, war-torn landscapes and troubled faces.
Parallels in pain, passion
Many of the Hope Walk stations were no less formidable in their imagery and words. But above it all floated the notes and words of the spirituals, composed mostly on the pentatonic scale, the five notes of the piano’s black keys. This scale, repeated in different octaves, is full of “power and pathos,” as musician and preacher Wintley Phipps puts it.
“‘What am I doing here? I’m having a ton of people over for Sunday dinner. I should be getting ready,’ ” Marj Wise said she told herself as she entered the Hope Walk on Holy Thursday.
“At first you read it (one inscription) and it’s no big deal,” she said. “Then you read more about what they went through — the depths of their pain. You see they still valued God and they still valued life. There’s something very moving about it.”
As Jim Wright of Centennial said, if the Lord could lift their spirits, he can lift ours. He sees the strong parallel in the suffering of the slaves and the passion of Jesus.
Participants in Hope Walk were invited to pick up a heavy chain, carry it awhile, and then drop it at the foot of the cross, where the slaves, through their spirituals, dropped theirs.
Before gospel music, blues or jazz, there were the work songs, chants and spirituals of an estimated 10 million lives caught in the overseas slave trade of 1600-1850. The United States repealed slavery on its shores in 1865.
Expressing “deepest feelings”
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, reports that, with the spirituals, West African musical elements and European music traditions met on American ground to create more than 600 known songs, 260 of them published.
“The slaves had many means of resisting the dehumanizing effects of slavery. Religion became one of them, and through religious songs the slaves made up from biblical stories, they were able to express their deepest feelings,” said Julius Lester of the Negro Spiritual Heritage Project.
“We rejoice in their endurance and faith under the horrible conditions of slavery,” Strait wrote. Everyone is at times enslaved in mind, body or soul, he said.
“It’s a reminder of the struggles we all go through,” said Adam Steffl, a 31-year-old Denver man who came to the Hope Walk during Holy Week because he has to work today.
“I wanted some time to reflect on my faith, and how I can help,” he said.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
