The Rev. Noah Van Niel

The Chapel of the Cross

December 20th, 2020

Advent IV: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Magnificat; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

Hold on, just a little while longer.

Everything will be alright.

Hold on…just a little while longer…everything will be alright. These words come to us from a traditional African-American spiritual which, like most spirituals, emerged out of the experience of slavery in these United States. There are more verses that follow: Hold on, Fight on, Pray on, and then finally, Sing on. There is an intensity in its simple melody and repeated refrain that houses a kernel of confidence that defies explanation. For, how could anyone living through an experience as awful as slavery, “hold on just a little while longer,” let alone say that “everything will be alright?” It is a song of victory for the simple fact that it is being sung at all. It is a song of strength and power and endurance. It is a song of hope. But most of all, it is a song of faith. Faith in the faithfulness of God to give them the strength they needed to survive even when, especially when, they had no more strength of their own to rely on. In that way it was a ferocious faith, forged in the fires of affliction until it was indestructible; like a diamond, pressed beneath the weight of the earth.

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