The Background
Bob Marley and Peter Tosh wrote “Get Up, Stand Up” in 1973, and it appeared on The Wailers’ album Burnin’. The story goes that Marley was inspired while touring Haiti, where he saw poverty up close and people living under a dictatorship. He came home with a song that told ordinary people to stop waiting for rescue and stand up.
It became an anthem for human rights movements all over the world, and it was the last song Marley ever performed on stage, in Pittsburgh in 1980. Not a bad closing number. Most of us end our careers with a retirement cake in the break room.
The song also takes a swing at preachers who promise heaven later while ignoring suffering now. That part stings a little if you’re a churchgoer. It should.
Through a Christian Lens
I don’t share all of Marley’s theology, but I can’t argue with his complaint. Too often the church has told hurting people to be patient and look up while it looked away. That’s not the faith Jesus taught. He fed hungry people before He preached to them. He healed on the Sabbath when the religious crowd said wait until tomorrow.
Scripture is full of people told to get up. Jesus told a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years to take up his bed and walk. He told a dead girl, “Talitha cumi,” which means “little girl, arise.” He told Lazarus to come out of a tomb. God seems to have a thing about people getting up.
I’ve spent seasons of my life lying on the floor, figuratively and occasionally literally. Standing up for my rights mattered. But the first thing I had to do was simply stand up, and I couldn’t do that on my own strength. The real fight isn’t only against unjust systems. It’s against everything that keeps us lying down when God is saying arise.
Isaiah 60:1 (KJV)
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
— JC
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