People Get Ready

People get ready there’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket you just thank the Lord

Many singers have recorded this song. I still prefer the original.

It’s a simple gospel song expressing Christian faith; it also expresses powerful feelings of America’s great racial unrest in the 1960s. Martin Luther King called it the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement…

Thus ‘People get Ready’ contains images from Christian tradition and black slavery… discrimination, prejudice, persecution, oppression… but also freedom, deliverance, redemption, hope…  

So people get ready for the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers coast to coast
Faith is the key open the doors and board them
There’s hope for all among the loved the most

Today’s Palm Sunday… a story about a crowd of people who enjoyed seeing the train coming but chose not to get on board. As the Easter story unfolds we see religious leaders who are on board the wrong train… We see Jesus’ friends and disciples deciding whether to get on board, and whether to stay on board His train.

There ain’t no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
Cause there’s no hiding place against the Kingdom’s Throne

Musing…. I like the simple picture of faith being like getting on board a train… that it’s about me, not my ticket or baggage… the hope of journey and destination.

Preparing to consider again the Easter story of suffering, death and resurrection… I get on board with renewed faith and hope… I just thank the Lord.

People get ready there’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket you just thank the Lord