September 12, 2020 (Saturday)
Forty-two years ago I went to Jamaica. My friends, Dean Burleigh and Cecil Phelps were working for ALPART (Alumina Partners of Jamaica), the nationalized alumina production company. Dean was pastor of the Mandeville Baptist Church and Cecil was a member. They invited me to come to Jamaica and preach for a week of revival meetings. We had a good week together, although our meetings were a little overshadowed by a big tent meetng in downtown Mandeville led by Jamaican people who claimed to be performing miracles. It was the “talk of the town.”
When Saturday rolled around, I was deeply impressed by seeing members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, dressed in ther best, joining hands with family members, walking to church on what they believe to be the Sabbath Day. Of course, they would be right about that if we had only the Old Testament to guide us. Jews today throughout the world observe Saturday (Friday evening to Saturday evening) as the Sabbath Day. Adventists also do this. Hence their name, Seventh Day Adventist.
[Early Jewish Christians observed a Saturday Sabbath, and then on Sunday (the day of Jesus’ Resurrection) came together as Christians. As Gentiles became dominant in numbers of Christians, the Jewish observances were replaced with Christian observances, such as worship on Sunday. For Christians Sunday has become “the Christian Sabbath.” Saturday celebrates Creation; Sunday celebrates Resurrection.]
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Jamaica has more than 307,000 church members worshiping in 738 churches and congregations. The church oversees 29 primary and secondary schools, a university and a hospital.
They were a beautiful sight for me as I watched entire families walking together down the unpaved roads on Saturday, seemingly very happy and eagerly making their way to worship.
Adventists in Jamaica, however, have a problem of keeping their jobs because of their Saturday Sabbath. Agencies and organizations of Jamaica and the U.S.A. are working to remove discrimination in employment based on religious beliefs.
Whenever we see tourism in Jamaica advertised, certain resort centers are always the focus of such ads. Actually, Jamaica itself and its people as a whole are completely separate from the playgrounds of people from other countries.
When I was there in 1978, inflation was rampant and times were hard. Cuba was moving in and planning to become more greatly involved in Jamaican politics, but I think they finally realized Cuba had enough problems of its own without annexing Jamaican problems. Also at that time politically inspired crime existed in Kingston and in other places, hindering tourism. All that, as far as I know, are now associated only with past history.
I wrote this blog only because I wanted to share the joy of Jamaican Christians, dressed in their finest, walking down unpaved roads to their churches on their Sabbath.
Here’s a group of Jamaican Christians happy to be at church:
