Don’t Be A June 18th Christian

In 2021, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in the US. I was asked recently why I didn’t celebrate it. I observe the holiday but can’t say that I celebrate it. I understand why the enslaved Black people in Texas, after realizing for the first time that they had been liberated from institutionalized human slavery, joyously celebrated. My perspective of Juneteenth from 150 plus years later is a bit different from theirs. The celebratory formerly enslaved were unaware that the proclamation didn’t apply to the enslaved in the North, or that it would be followed by Jim Crow in the South which was far deadlier, or that it would take another one hundred years before their power to protect their freedom would be safeguarded by the Voting Rights Act. Yes, I can understand why they celebrated, but today it doesn’t make me feel festive. I think the observance of Juneteenth is important because it reveals the medical history of the US when trying to diagnose the failing health of equality and justice for all.

I think Christians can learn a lot from the Juneteenth holiday. It is a real life example of the impact of not spreading the gospel. When the good news of the gospel is suppressed or withheld, people continue to suffer and perish needlessly.

Those who confess to believe in the gospel of Christ should be celebrating their liberation like the June 19th formerly enslaved people of 1865 Texas. Instead, we see millions of confessing Christians living like the June 18, 1865, people who were uninformed of the liberating good news. Today, there are many people who confess to believe in Christ, while remaining enslaved to sin and the filthiness of the flesh, even though GOD has broken the power of the enemy and liberated them. This unfortunate condition is due to rejecting the good news more so than not hearing it. Similar to the way the children of Israel rejected the leadership and message of the prophet Moses and continued in the mindset shaped by life in Egypt.

When the Union Army reached the Black people in Texas on June 19, 1865, with the good news, they immediately began to celebrate with prayer, feasting, song, and dance. In the following years they would observe June 19^th with prayer meetings, songs, and adorning themselves with new clothes to celebrate their new lives. Their celebrating reminds me of the admonishment of the Apostle Paul to put on the new man which is renewed after the likeness of Christ and to always make melody in your heart with songs of praise unto GOD and to pray without ceasing. Don’t be a June 18^th Christian. Accept the good news of the gospel with your whole heart unto taking up the cross and believing GOD for the newness of life that comes afterwards. Renounce the slave mentality of the former life and exercise your will towards reaching the promises of righteousness, peace, joy, and the glory of Christ likeness.  Also, continue to spread the news to all who still haven’t heard the true gospel, that the power of sin and death has been broken and we now live in the day of life and spirit unto godliness.

¹⁴ Therefore He says:

“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”

¹⁵ See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, ¹⁶ redeeming the time, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another in the fear of God. (Ephesians 5:14-21)