Wade in the Water: Secret Songs of Liberation
John 5:2-9
Today we turn to the spirituals—songs born in slavery that gave birth to gospel, jazz, blues, and hip-hop. They carry African spirituality, Christian teachings, and unfathomable human suffering. And in this moment of renewed racism, profiling, and the weaponizing of Christianity to control the vulnerable, these songs remind us who God is: the liberator who created us equal in the divine image and stands against every project of oppression.
Songs of Sorrow, Songs of Strength
About 5,000 spirituals survive. Many were composed spontaneously in moments of crushing disappointment.
One story tells of enslaved people gathering on a South Carolina shoreline, waiting. They’d heard about Emancipation. The government had promised land and a mule to each freed family. So they waited for a man crossing the water to deliver these hopes. But they could read his face from the boat—their dreams were about to shatter. Someone began to sing.
Soloist Sings Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
They called them “sorrow songs.” There’s power in naming your pain—it leads to healing. But these songs didn’t stop at sorrow. They reached upward. Did you hear it? “Oh, and on that glory hallelujah, then we fly.” Even in grief, they claimed their wings.
The spirituals helped people transcend their circumstances and elevate their spirits.
The Ethics of the Oppressed
These songs reinforced ethical behavior. They refused to let bitter circumstances excuse horrible behavior. Love. Forgive. Be generous. Be kind—no matter what. There’s no hint of violence or retribution against slaveholders.
Joe Carter, a singer and historian of spirituals, observes there are no mean-spirited sentiments in the spirituals at all. This was profound theology. They understood Jesus, who said, “Repay no one evil for evil.”
Taking Responsibility in Impossible Circumstances
The spirituals insisted on personal responsibility for one’s own moral life. Focus on your own spiritual well-being.
Soloist Sings It’s Me, It’s Me O Lord
Not the preacher. Not the deacon. Not the master. Me. My spirit. They endured unspeakable brutality and still said, “I’m taking responsibility for who I am today. I’m standing in need. Come and fix my proud heart.”
Can you do the same? Can you move through your frustrations—through the horrible things people do to you—with a spirit that says, “The most important thing I can do is be true to what God calls me to do, to how Jesus taught me to behave”?
From African Rhythms to Christian Liberation
African cultures believed in supreme beings that could be reached through music. The more fervently they sang, the more they could connect with the deity, who would become part of them, giving them the strength to overcome obstacles.
When people were kidnapped from their ancestral lands, they sought new sacred rhythms to connect with the divine. And the slavers were ready with Christianity—but not for liberation. For control.
Christianity as Weapon
Enslavers spread Christianity to rip away ancestral faiths and ensure compliance. Once slaves identified as Christians, they could be controlled with selective scripture: “Slaves, obey your masters.” The message was clear: Be obedient, cause no trouble, and you’ll go to a better place when you die.
Christianity became a tool to maintain power.
When enslaved people experienced their masters’ “Christianity,” they were unimpressed. How could a religion condone such brutality? One spiritual has a line about how not everyone who talks about heaven gets to go.
The sad history of the world is how readily people twist faith to control others. White Christian Nationalists are using the same playbook today—claiming a “mission from God” to justify raids, detention, and terror. Howard Thurman wrote that the spirituals purified the religion the masters polluted. That’s why they’re still important today.
Discovering the Real Jesus
But something clicked when enslaved people heard about Jesus’ suffering. They said, “His story sounds like our story. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen like Jesus. He understands. He was born in terrible circumstances, abused, whipped, and killed. He identifies with us. He will carry us to the High God.”
Then they heard about Hebrew slavery and escape, about Daniel with the lions. They discovered a spirituality that connected with their experience—a God who identifies with suffering and works for liberation.
Although slavers meant Christianity to be a tool of oppression, slaves saw it as affirmation of their basic worth and dignity. They found their way past the manipulation to the truth and beauty of the gospel.
The Secret Language of Freedom
Soon, multiple layers of meaning emerged. Comfort in the stories of Jesus, Moses, and Daniel. Yearning for heaven. But also yearning for freedom now. Many spirituals became code language.
Steal Away became about escape. Listen for it.
Soloist sings Steal Away
“I ain’t got long to stay”—everybody knew: someone’s escaping tonight. Support them.
Many of the songs employed code language. Shoes in a song meant someone’s getting ready to run. Follow the Gourdtaught them to follow the Big Dipper to the North Star. References to agents or shepherds often meant helpers on the Underground Railroad. The Jordan River meant crossing the Ohio River to freedom in the north. Go Down Moses, saying “Let My People Go,” had a crystal-clear meaning.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot spoke of God’s chariot swinging down to take souls to heaven—but the chariot also meant the Underground Railroad. Sometimes they sang Swing Low, Sweet Harriet, honoring Tubman.
Soloist sings Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Wade in the Water
Wade in the Water, which the choir will sing later, has multiple meanings. It’s about baptism and reminding slaves of avoiding detection from dogs by getting into the water. It’s about someone preparing to escape. It references our scripture—Jesus healing a man who’d waited 38 years by a pool, hoping to be healed when angels stirred the water. Jesus asks, “Do you want to be healed?” Then tells him: take up your mat and go home. A story about self-sufficiency, initiative, refusing victimhood.
The song became a staple of the civil rights movement.
Right now, the waters are troubled. We’ve got to step in and speak up for people suffering from what’s happening.
The irony? Masters liked hearing them sing about Jesus and Moses. “Sing us some of those songs,” they’d say. They never knew what they were asking for.
Our Calling Today
These were songs that inspired people to hang in, to press for liberation, without violence or meanness. The spirituals formed the core of the civil rights movement’s strength and faith, including Dr. King’s. They remain at the core of America’s songbook—the continual press to live up to our values, where our society will finally achieve the dream of all people treated as equals.
Like those enslaved people who saw through the masters’ twisted theology to find the real Jesus, we must see through those who misuse faith for power and control. We must sing songs of resistance and hope, songs that name the suffering while reaching for freedom, songs that inspire us to stand for liberation without giving in to violence or despair.
The masters never knew what they were asking for when they said, “Sing us those songs.”
Neither do the empire’s agents today when they claim divine sanction for their cruelty.
But we know. We know the God who stands with the oppressed. We know the Jesus who healed, who liberated, who said the last shall be first. We know our job is to wade in the troubled waters, to take up our mats and walk, to steal away toward freedom—not just for ourselves, but for everyone terrorized, profiled, and crushed by systems that claim God’s blessing while opposing everything God stands for.
So let us sing. Let us resist. Let us remember that not everyone who talks about heaven knows the agenda of the God they talk about—but everyone who works for liberation gets a taste of that heaven here, not just in the sweet by and by.
Amen.