Wade in the Water

The Moses of Her People

Artist Carl Dixon created a powerful side-by-side representation of Harriet Tubman and Moses in his carved wood painting, Exodus: Journeys of Liberation.

On the left side of the carving, Moses, staff in hand, leads the people of Israel through the Red Sea, which has been parted to let them walk across. In the corresponding image on the right side, Harriet Tubman watches as a group of freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad reaches the banks of the Ohio River.

The Red Sea and the Ohio River.

Harriet’s propensity to step out in faith began at a young age. When she was only five years old, she was rented out as a nursemaid and was whipped every time the baby in the family cried. At the age of 12, she saw one of her masters prepare to throw a heavy weight at an enslaved man who had tried to escape. Harriet bravely stepped in front of the man, and the weight struck her head instead, leaving her to deal with severe headaches and narcolepsy over the course of her life.

When two of Harriet’s brothers, Ben and Henry, discovered they were going to be sold, Harriet began formulating a plan for the three of them to escape. Several of their sisters had already been sold further south, and she was not going to lose her brothers, too. However, halfway through their escape, Ben and Henry became scared of what might lie ahead. The risk, they said, was just too great, and they decided to go back. Harriet remarkably made the rest of the journey on her own.

She finally crossed into Pennsylvania and found work in Philadelphia, but she did not stay there long. She was not satisfied living free, knowing so many of her friends and family were still in slavery. She put her life on the line, time and time again, to return to the South to help more people escape. Her success became so well known that owners of the enslaved soon posted a $40,000 reward for her capture or death, but even that didn’t stop her.

In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act allowed fugitive and free enslaved people in the North to be captured and enslaved again. This made Harriet’s work even harder and forced her to lead people even farther north to Canada. Nevertheless, she persisted. She went on to participate in the Civil War – not only as a nurse, but also as a secret agent and military leader of a Union battalion in a raid against a plantation in South Carolina that freed approximately  700 enslaved people.

"Harriet Tubman was an illiterate woman of colour," says Catherine Clinton, author of one of her biographies. “She was not only physically challenged but also by her race and gender.” And yet, during a ten-year span, she made 19 trips back into the South, and it is believed she personally helped over 300 enslaved people escape to freedom, including her 70-year-old parents.

Few quotes from Harriet’s lifetime survive because little was written about the life of a Black woman at the time, but the following words attributed to her powerfully capture her mission and this story of courageous action from Exodus. She said, “I always told the Lord, 'I trust you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,' and He always did."

Even before the waters had begun to part, Harriet trusted God to show her the way. In fact, oral tradition tells how Harriet used the song “Wade in the Water” to interact with freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad: its coded language warning them to jump in the river, to “wade in the water” whenever people were hunting them so that the dogs couldn’t trace their scent. And day after day, year after year, Harriet led people to wade through the water and the wilderness, calling them to take that next brave step forward toward freedom.

The Seas that Have Not Opened Before Us

Of course, as Harriet experienced, when we take the first step toward justice, it often doesn't feel like dry ground beneath our feet. The ground may be covered by water when we step into it.

There are real risks to jumping into the water before the seas have opened! And those of us on the margins often experience these risks even more. Those of us in places of privilege would do well to continually remind ourselves of this, and to put ourselves in places of greater risk for and with our marginalized siblings, knowing that some of us have more lifesavers or rafts accessible to us than others do. Some of us can afford to wade into the waters until we are up to our shoulders, while others may not be able to risk wading in above their ankles. Steps toward justice look different for different people. 

The words of civil rights activist and congressman, the late John Lewis, give us encouragement in these moments:

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."
(Tweet from June 2018)

With a 60-year history of civil rights activism, Lewis was well acquainted with the risks and results of “good trouble.” He was repeatedly arrested and beaten for participating in sit-ins at lunch counters and Freedom Rides across the South. He would go on to help lead one of the most significant marches of the American Civil Rights Movement from Selma to Montgomery, which resulted in what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” as police officers on horseback released tear gas on the protesters, brutally attacking them with clubs and whips. Even with a fractured skull, Lewis spoke to reporters and called upon President Lyndon B. Johnson to take action. Good trouble may sound enticing, but it doesn’t come without significant consequences. John Lewis felt the risks were necessary to create change. Each of us will need to discern our steps as we risk wading into the waters.

How might God be challenging you to jump in the deep end, or to make some waves in the shallow end, and to get into some “good trouble”? We are reminded by an old song to wade into the waters. Why? Because God’s gonna trouble the waters! May we find our own ways toward troubled waters too. 

We cultivate qualities of sight, like Moses, Harriet, and John Lewis, to help us perceive beyond and endure the obstacles and real risks that come with good trouble. This awareness helps us keep these steps as we wade deeper into these troubled waters with God.

**This essay is a revised version of pages 67-70 in Hard and Holy Work: A Lenten Journey through the Book of Exodus, which I co-wrote with Mary Alice Birdwhistell.

A Benediction (Or Miscellaneous Thoughts)

Uncle Ishmael will be exploring the biblical book of Exodus in alignment with the Revised Common Lectionary.

Here's a list of the Sundays and the Exodus scripture lesson:
September 20 2026 Exodus 16:2-15
September 27 2026 Exodus 17:1-7
October 4 2026 Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
October 11 2026 Exodus 32:1-14