Morning Devotional

September 14, 2003

"The Star-Spangled Banner"  

by Don Emmitte

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When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be freed from their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come." He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone in the synagogue stared at him intently. Then he said, "This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!" (Luke 4:16-21 NLT). 

On this day in 1814 Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the massive British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Key, an American lawyer, watched the siege while under detainment on a British ship and penned the famous words after observing that the US flag over Fort McHenry had survived the 1,800-bomb assault. After circulating as a handbill, the patriotic lyrics were published in a Baltimore newspaper on September 20. Set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," an English drinking song, written by the British composer John Stafford Smith, it soon became popular throughout the nation.

Throughout the 19th century, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was regarded as the national anthem by the US armed forces and other groups, but it was not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it was formally designated as such. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional act confirming Wilson's presidential order. The first stanza goes: 

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

“The land of the free” is the phrase that catches my attention. When Key wrote those words, freedom in America was merely a future hope. So it is as we anticipate the freedom that Jesus came to bring us. That freedom was begun with his death and resurrection, however it will not be compete until he restores his rule on the earth. As I read the Scripture and compare the current events unfolding with those prophesied, I am sure that day is closer than anyone might imagine. Are you prepared for that day? There is only one way to be ready. That is through faith in Christ. Trust in him today. You will not be disappointed!