The March for Freedom: A Genesis Moment of Revelation or Just Coincidence?

Part of our nation’s beauty and strength is rooted in religious freedom. Freedom to worship or believe as one chooses: Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, agnostic, or atheist. The Abrahamic faith traditions, like other faiths, offers prophetic revelations that when read and interpreted in the hands of wise teachers; those skilled in exegesis, can sometimes draw prophetic parallels connecting antiquity to current times.

I recently had the opportunity to experience the sage voice of a master preacher and teacher, Dr. James E. Forbes, Pastor Emeritus of The Riverside Church, speak to a Bible study group. The text he taught from is Genesis 15. He drew a parallel to the plight of African Americans’ 400 years of enslavement and oppression during their sojourn beginning 1619 when the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia – from slavery to freedom in the United States, commemorated last year in 2019.

Dr. Forbes pointed out that in Genesis Abram had a vision that his descendants, the Hebrews, would endure 400 years of brutality, hardship, and attempts at genocide meted out by oppressive rulers, and then, through plagues from the hand of God, be released.

In times like these, with a pandemic sweeping the nation threatening to infect millions and killing an inordinate number of African Americans, many people draw upon their faith to give them hope. It helps when that faith is rooted in substance that draws from human experience and a belief that “what we see isn’t all there is.”

A Partial reading of Genesis 15:

Genesis 15:2-18

2 “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.

13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;

14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

17 And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

18 In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”