The Forty-Day Journey of Promise
Day Twelve: Sitting on the Casket
Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.
The Lamb of God
On a quiet battlefield night at 10:00 p.m., the Orderly from Brigadier General Charles S. Russell came to Garland H. White’s tent, woke him up, and handed him an order. The bleary-eyed African American chaplain squinted as he read the handwritten missive.
“Rev. Garland H. White, Chaplain of the 28th U.S. Colored Troops: Sir:—You are requested to call upon Samuel Mapps, private in Co. D, 10th U.S.C.T, now under sentence of death, and now confined in the Bull-pen, to prepare him to meet his Savior. By official orders, Gen. C. S. Russell.”
Reverend White was an escaped slave now serving as chaplain of a black regiment from Indiana. He was one of only fourteen African American chaplains commissioned in the Union Army. Later he became a Methodist minister—his battlefield ministry providing hands-on training better than any seminary ever could.
Like white soldiers, some of the black troops ran afoul of military law. Private Mapps was convicted of trying to murder his captain. It was Chaplain White’s responsibility to tell Mapps of his fate and to prepare him for death—and life after death.
Knowing this, White immediately puts pen to paper.
“Gen. C. S. Russell, Commanding this Post: Sir:—I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your order respecting my visiting Private Samuel Mapps, Co. D., 10th U.S.C.T. In reply, I would say I will comply promptly, and do all in my power to point him to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. Yours, G. H. White, Chaplain.”
All Salvation Business
Meeting Mapps at the prison, White inquires, “Well, my friend, how stands your case?”
Mapps begins to plead his innocence and enters into a lengthy discussion of his trial. White promptly shifts the focus.
“I came to see you, not to discuss a point of law as to the nature of your trial and decision, for that is all useless, my friend, and I must tell you that today, at 12 o’clock you will be executed—yes, you will be shot. Now, let you and myself kneel down and address a throne of grace where you may obtain mercy and help in time of need.”
No beating around the bush. No chit-chat. All business. All salvation business.
Mapps complies and prays fervently, after which White reads several passages of Scripture, and sings a hymn Jesus, Lover of My Soul. Some historians falsely conclude that African Americans generally converted to a generic God. Nothing could be further from the truth in Mapps’ case and in the vast majority of conversion narratives. Mapps and millions of others specifically converted to Christ based upon a biblical understanding of who he is—Savior, and who they were—sinners.
White was not naïve. Realizing that Scripture reading, prayer, and singing were only preparatory to personal response, he then “spent some time in reasoning upon what he thought about religion.” To which Mapps candidly replies, “It is very good, and I wish I had it.” White next cites in plain terms the case of the dying thief who surrendered his life to Christ while hanging next to him on a cross. This gives Mapps hope. They then pray again and Mapps seems relieved.
Sitting on the Casket
At this moment the wagon with a squad of guards appears before the door. Mapps does not see them; White does. While Mapps continues to pray fervently, an officer enters announcing that the time has come “to repair to the place of execution.”
White writes that:
“I told him to stand up and walk with me. I took his arm, and went out to the gate where thousands of persons had assembled to see him. He entered the wagon, and sat on his coffin. I then got in with him, took a seat by his side, and commenced talking and praying all the way . . .”
What a picture! We talk about climbing in the casket to enter another’s agony. Chaplain White sits on the casket to share Mapps’ dying experience.
Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)
1. What can you apply to your ministry from Chaplain White’s reconciling ministry to Private Mapps?
2. Like Chaplain White, how can we be “all salvation business”?
