We have suffered in this country for over 400 years. We have endured murder and oppression, exploitation and genocide at the hands of our open enemy.
After such degradation and misery, it would be natural to ask why, when, or even can the suffering stop? If God has sent sages, prophets and saviours for those who endured harsh taskmasters in the past, should he not extend mercy to us? Don’t we deserve a divine servant to guide us out of slavery, suffering and death?
“Today is a special Saviours’ Day,” observed the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan during a historic Nation of Islam convention in Rosemont, Illinois. “My subject is from the Book of Isaiah, the prophet, Chapter 19, verse 20.
He said, ‘And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he’—The Lord—‘shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.’
“Nehemiah the prophet, in the 9th chapter, the 27th verse writes: ‘Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven;
And according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours’—plural—‘who saved them out of the hand of their enemies,’ ” said Minister Farrakhan during his Saviours’ Day keynote address in 2011.
“Now, over this last year, I have said that we, the Black people of America, are the real ‘Children of Israel’ of your scriptures. And I have explained the meaning of this to no challenge. God is indeed present. And He has made His choice of the people for His Glory,” Minister Farrakhan continued.
“God has chosen us for a specific duty and function. We are that people, then God will have to free us from the people to whom we are bound. And since they have already let us go, but they don’t want to say it openly, we want to force them to say, ‘Yes, we let you go’—but then you have to provide us with a good sendoff.
“And if you don’t provide us with what is required to let us go, then God will fight you, and now is fighting for our deliverance.”
“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that Master Fard Muhammad, the Man Who Saviours’ Day in the Nation of Islam honors, studied 42 years to deliver us. We were never told all that He studied.
But in order to deliver us from the powerful hands of those who oppress us, He first had to study The Enemy that would work to prevent us from being taken. And then, He would have to study the means and the method by which He would bring the power of The Enemy to nothing.
“So Isaiah the prophet said, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people …’ I want you to know that it is you, in this time of our distress, whom God is going to comfort, because a Comforter has come to take us out of the distress of our 450 years of suffering under the oppressive hand of an open enemy.
And this one who has come, according to the scriptures, he came alone because there was none to help him. So the scriptures taught that his own right arm, it upheld him.
“This man, Master Fard Muhammad, Elijah Muhammad said of Him that He came to us from the Holy City of Mecca, in Arabia. He was born February 26, 1877.”
This year we again celebrate His coming, His power, His beneficence, His love, His mercy and His wisdom. We thank Him and His divine servants for giving us the opportunity to be helpers in a great cause—the resurrection of our people.
In Chicago, our headquarters’ city, we gather Feb. 21-23 on the grounds of our National Center for the Re-Education and Re-Training of the Black Man and Woman and Mosque Maryam.
It is a most fitting venue as from this place we offer our people and the world divine light, life and power to outfit us for a new day. A day in which we will enjoy a full and complete freedom, justice and equality and be made into a new people.
During Saviours’ Day, we come together, enjoying prayers, workshops, trainings, fellowship, family and fun. We engage in the business of trade and commerce. We gain new tools and inspiration to return home to continue or join the work of uplifting our people.
We have the opportunity to enjoy and showcase our growing national and international culture, express our way of devotion, and offer the world a glimpse of what the New Black Man, New Black Woman and New Black Family looks like and acts like.
The weekend is an exhilarating experience of love, brotherhood, and sisterhood. It is wonderful to stand together in a tranquil atmosphere regardless of our faiths, politics, economics or other perceived differences.
When a people become exposed to a knowledge outside of the control of their oppressor, it affords them the opportunity to change. When a fallen people are given Supreme Wisdom, as we have been given by Master Fard Muhammad, we have the potential to grow into God. Saviours’ Day allows us to be our best selves, our true selves and to begin to enter into a brave, bold, beautiful new world.
