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Let My People Go

“Let my people go,
Let my people go -
Light a fire in the dark, a fire in the dark,
Let my people go.”

Worship and justice are inseparable. Worship is an act of welcoming in the King – but You cannot have the King without His Kingdom. As Jesus is ushered in, He brings His kingdom with Him. It is a force to be reckoned with – a place of love, peace and justice. As we lift Jesus high it is inevitable that themes of compassion and social justice will begin to emerge in our lives. To feed the poor, rescue the orphan or stand up for the victim of modern slavery is not just a charity issue – it’s a worship issue. When we truly fix our eyes on Jesus, we will no longer be able to ignore the realities of a broken world all around us. As the theologian Jurgen Moltmann expresses it:

“Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest… Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world.”

Often throughout scripture we find evidence that worship and justice are intertwined. When Jesus clears the temple in John chapter 2, He overturns tables and drives out unethical traders with a whip. It is a worship issue – for He cares about the integrity of His Father’s house – yet it is also a justice issue - for He has seen how these traders take advantage of the poor with their exorbitant charges for temple offerings. Jesus simply cannot stand the fact that what should be a ‘house of prayer’ has become a ‘den of thieves.’ As we observe Him in this moment we see the fires of worship and the fires of justice burning together as one flame.

This same dynamic is apparent in the Old Testament, with the story of the Exodus. Speaking on God’s behalf, Moses commands the hardened heart of Pharaoh:

“Let my people go, that they may worship me in the desert.”

Again, it is both a worship issue and a justice issue. God desires that His people may be free to devote themselves to Him, and at the same time free from the shackles of their slavery.

With all of this in mind, we wrote this song “Let my people go.” Yes, it’s a worship song - but it’s also a song of justice. Around the world today there are an estimated 27 million people bound by the chains of modern day slavery. Human trafficking has become an evil stain on the fabric of our society. And those 27 million enslaved are not just numbers or statistics on a chart – they are someone’s brother, someone’s sister – and of course they are God’s children. We hear Him saying loud and clear, just as He did through Moses all those centuries ago:

“Let my people go!”