INVOCATION
Where can we go where it is safe to be holy?
O’ Shelter, let your children come.
HARK! NEWS SO GOOD HOW CAN IT BE TRUE
John 1:14 | The Expanded Bible
The Word became [a] human flesh and lived, [making] his home, [pitching] his tabernacle. God’s glorious presence dwelt in Israel’s tabernacle in the wilderness among us. We saw his glory [and] majesty—the glory that belongs to the only Son, the one and only, the only begotten who came from the Father. And he was full of grace and truth—God’s gracious love and faithfulness.
THE FIRST GIFT | A HUSH HARBOR
Way down deep in the dark brush of wood, beneath a canopy of trees, lay a hush harbor. It was a tabernacle of refuge, part sky and thicket and part swamp and ravine. Here in this gully, God’s people took shelter in each other’s faith.
Just as there was no room for the holy family—Joseph, Mary and child—at the inn, there was no room for God’s holy people—Black enslaved fathers, mothers and children. They had to seek shelter—privacy really—to birth something new, outside of the Big house and away from the fields they did not own. Like the holy family, they found a secluded place to birth holiness. It was a room outside of convention and outside of institution, a room where spiritual “labor” could go on without interrogation or interruption.
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