Go tell it on the mountain - James Baldwin [101]
‘Oh, yes!’ cried the voice of Elisha. ‘Bless our God for ever!’
And a sweetness filled John as he heard this voice, and heard the sound of singing: the singing was for him. For his drifting soul was anchored in the love of God; in the rock that endured for ever. The light and the darkness had kissed each other, and were married now, for ever, in the life and the vision of John’s soul.
I, John, saw a city, way in the middle of the air,
Waiting, waiting, waiting up there.
He opened his eyes on the morning, and found them, in the light of the morning, rejoicing for him. The trembling he had known in darkness had been the echo of their joyful feet—these feet, bloodstained for ever, and washed in many rivers—they moved on the bloody road for ever, with no continuing city, but seeking one to come: a city out of time, not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens. No power could hold this army back, no water disperse them, no fire consume them. One day they would compel the earth to heave upward, and surrender the waiting dead. They sang, where the darkness gathered, where the lion waited, where the fire cried, and where blood ran down:
My soul, don’t you be uneasy!
They wandered in the valley for ever; and they smote the rock, for ever; and the waters sprang, perpetually, in the perpetual desert. They cried unto the Lord for ever, and lifted up their eyes for ever, they were cast down for ever, and He lifted them up for ever. No, the fire could not hurt them, and yes, the lion’s jaws were stopped; the serpent was not their master, the grave was not their resting-place, the earth was not their home. Job bore them witness, and Abraham was their father, Moses had elected to suffer with them rather that glory in sin for a season. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had gone before them into the fire, their grief had been sung by David, and Jeremiah had wept for them. Ezekiel had prophesied upon them, these scattered bones, these slain, and, in the fullness of time, the prophet, John, had come out of the wilderness, crying that the promise was for them. They were encompassed with a very cloud of witnesses: Judas, who had betrayed the Lord; Thomas, who had doubted Him; Peter, who had trembled at the crowing of a cock; Stephen, who had been stoned; Paul, who had been bound; the blind man crying in the dusty road, the dead man rising from the grave. And they looked unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of their faith, running with patience the race He had set before them; they endured the cross, and they despised the shame, and waited to join Him, one day, in glory, at the right hand of the Father.
My soul! don’t you be uneasy!
Jesus going to make up my dying bed!
‘Rise up, rise up, Brother Johnny, and talk about the Lord’s deliverance.’
It was Elisha who had spoken; he stood just above John, smiling; and behind him were the saints—Praying Mother Washington, and Sister McCandless, and Sister Price. Behind these, he saw his mother, and his aunt; his father, for the moment, was hidden from his view.
‘Amen!’ cried Sister McCandless, ‘rise up, and praise the Lord!’
He tried to speak, and could not, for the joy that rang in him this morning. He smiled up to Elisha, and his tears ran down; and Sister McCandless began to sing:
‘Lord, I ain’t
No stranger now!
‘Rise up, Johnny,’ said Elisha, again. ‘Are you saved, boy?’
‘Yes,’ said John, ‘oh, yes!’ And the words came upward, it seemed, of themselves, in the new voice God had given him. Elisha stretched out his hand, and John took the hand, and stood—so suddenly, and so strangely, and with such wonder!—once more on his feet.
‘Lord, I ain’t
No stranger now!’
Yes, the night had passed, the powers of darkness had been beaten back. He moved among the saints, he, John, who had come home, who was one of their company now; weeping, he yet could find no words to speak of his great gladness;