Midnight Special

The Rev. Joseph Winston

June 13, 2010

Grace and peace are gifts for you from God, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ.1

Let the midnight special, shine the light on me

Let the midnight special, shine the ever-lovin’ light on me

In 1905, Howard Odum put these words down on paper.2 A few years later, they
became associated with a prison down the road from us in Sugar Land.3 The story
goes that the “Midnight Special” is a train that barreled down the tracks in the dark
of the night. Its light entered the cells of prisoners and reminded them of home.
One of the men that spent seven years of his life behind the bars of the Sugar
Land Prison was the famous blue’s singer “Hudy” Ledbetter or more commonly
1
Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, 2 Corinthians 1:2, Galatians 1:3, Ephesians 1:2, Philippians
1:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:2, Philemon 1:3.
2
Anonymous, Midnight Special (song), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Midnight_Special_%28song%29.
3
Idem, Sugar Land, Texas, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Land,
_Texas.

1
known as Lead Belly. In January of 1918, Lead Belly killed a man over a woman
and for this he was incarnated in the state pen.4 There it seems he learned the
lyrics of the “Midnight Special” in the prison and added a few lines of his own,

If you ever go to Houston, oh you better walk right

And you better not squallow and you better not fight
Sheriff Rocko will arrest you, Eddie Boone will take you down
You can bet your bottom dollar, penitentiary bound

For years, songwriters have known trains are much more than transportation.
Just about every part of a train, from its engine to its caboose, including the road-
way it travels on, embodies freedom. The tracks take you out of this place and
into new worlds. The engine provides the power that transports you far from here
into a life you can only dream about. The cars move that heavy load from your
shoulders and deposit it somewhere else. The whistle calls you to get up and to go
on a new journey.
All of these different images that the train brings of being able to do what you
want are especially painful when someone decides every part of your life. Lead
Belly sings out,

Knife and fork are on the table, there’s nothin’ in my pan

And if you say anything about it, havin’ trouble with the man

This is the life of a prisoner. The state decides when you wake up in the morning,
the clothes you wear, the food you eat, the work you perform, the people you see,
4
Anonymous, Lead Belly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadbelly.

2
and when they lock you back in the cell at night.
The refrain reminds you of the world outside of the bars,

Let the midnight special, shine the light on me

Let the midnight special, shine the ever-lovin’ light on me

The train tells you what could have been, what might have been, if you just fol-
lowed the laws of the land.
Your life tells you the same thing. It shouts out to you that everything is not
right. Its voice is so strong that the walls here echo its message first spoken to you.
Listen and you hear the shock of children dying before their parents. You learn of
the almost paralyzing fear parents have for what might happen to their children.
You recognize the familiar line that adults lack real meaning in their lives. You
feel the painful heartbreak of divorce. You find terrifying stories of illness that
robs the past and the future. You discover the abject loneliness that never leaves.
It sometimes seems like you are locked up in prison. There is nothing that you
can do except watch the headlight from the train that comes by every night. That
is what the song tells us,

Let the midnight special, shine the light on me

Let the midnight special, shine the ever-lovin’ light on me

Paul says something to the church in Galatia along the same lines. He writes,
“For through the law I died to the law (Galatians 2:19a).”
To fully understand Paul’s statement, you first need to realize that the law’s
primary function is showing us our weaknesses. This of course means that we do

3
not do what is required of us. This includes our failure to keep the Ten Command-
ments. But our list of shortcomings is much longer than this. Go back and hear
again what troubles us: death, accidents, the inability to help those we love, bro-
ken vows, unpredictable lives, and isolation. Recast each of these fears as flaws
because that is exactly what they are. We cannot keep children from dying before
their parents. We cannot stop the horror that enters a parent’s heart when they
realize what might happen to their loved ones. We cannot bring meaning to ev-
ery live. We cannot repair problems in relationship. We cannot heal all diseases.
We cannot bring happiness. Every one of faults has a cost associated with it. You
know them. Their names include pain, fear, hurt, disappointment, suffering, and
loss. Then there is the final one that we cannot escape. Its name is death.
Normally, you think of death happening on your last day of life here on earth.
Your body stops working. Someone pronounces you dead and then state gives
your survivors a death certificate, which lists the time and place of your death.
Paul does not believe the definition of death is only when your body ceases
functioning. For him, death occurs while you are alive. Death happens when you
have to put your loved one in the ground and you can never see them again. Death
takes place when your child is hurt and will never get better. Death is found
wherever someone cannot live up to their full potential. Death exists in broken
promises. Death is your constant companion when life is taken from you. Death
never leaves you alone.
Then there is one more death that you must face and more than likely you do
not even remember the encounter that changed you forever. On a day like today,

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in a place somewhat like this, at a font like this one, you were drowned when the
pastor poured water over your head and said (Romans 6:3), “I baptize you in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
You are dead but you still are here. Your lungs continue to draw in air and
exhale the used gases. Your heart keeps pumping blood through your system. Your
brain functions as it should. You are alive.
This needs an explanation.
Paul gives us one. He states in his letter to the church in Galatia, “It is no
longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20a).”
What you used to be is dead. It is gone forever. It simply no longer exists. In
its place, there is another. His name is Jesus.5
Right now, you are a part of the body of Christ. His lungs breathe for you. His
heart moves blood for you. His brain thinks for you.
Someone will certainly object to this new life in Christ by correctly pointing
out the fact that everyone, baptized or not, still stumbles and falls. Every encounter
with death gives you the proper response to this argument. Death always steals
something from you. It might be a child, it could be your dignity, or it is even
possible that you no longer have a spouse. Yet, at each death, you still have at
5
When looking at Romans 12:3-6, Barth writes in The Epistle to the Romans that despite what
the church teaches, Paul does not support the idea of “individual human personality.” in the body
of Christ. Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, (London, England: Oxford University Press,
1933), p. 441. Barth goes on and says,
The believers – men in relation to God – are therefore, in their full-grown and in no
way attenuated individuality, ONE BODY, ONE INDIVIDUAL in Christ. They
are not a mass of individuals, not even a corporation, a personified society, or a
’totality,’ but The Individual, The One, The New Man. ibid., p. 443.

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least more item left until that final time death takes all it can. Your past acts in
the same way. It hangs on as long as possible. Jesus removes a bit here and a
little more there. Finally, when your life is complete, Jesus takes away the last
remaining cause for offense.

Let the midnight special, shine the light on me

Let the midnight special, shine the ever-lovin’ light on me

These lyrics now associated with Lead Belly’s time in the Sugar Land Prison tell
you of the blues experienced by the men who could only see freedom as a faint
light glowing between the bars of their prison cells. Jesus shines brighter than the
sun. His radiance enters every dark corner of life. He offers hope. To those who
trust the light of the world, He brings freedom to live.
“The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.”6

References

Anonymous, Lead Belly, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Leadbelly, Last accessed on July 12, 2010.

Anonymous, Midnight Special (song), http://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/Midnight_Special_%28song%29, Last accessed on June 12,
2010.
6
Philippians 4:7.

6
Anonymous, Sugar Land, Texas, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Sugar_Land,_Texas, Last accessed on July 12, 2010.

Barth, Karl, The Epistle to the Romans, (London, England: Oxford University
Press, 1933), Translated from the sixth edition by Edwyn C. Hoskyns.