by Thomas Ray
John Jasper was born July 4, 1812, the youngest of 24 children. His parents were Tina and Philip Jasper. His mother prayed that her son, “Do nothing but sing de praises of Jesus.” His father was a Baptist slave preacher who died two months before his son’s birth.
John Jasper spent the first 25 years of his life as a slave on the Peachy Plantation near Williamsburg, VA. About 1837 he was sent to Richmond to work in Sam Hargrove’s Tobacco Warehouse. His new master was a committed Christian who not only spoke to Jasper about his soul; he prayed for his conversion.
Jasper was converted July 25, 1839. He often told how he came to faith in Christ. “My sins was piled on me like mountains; my feet was sinking down to the regions of despair, and I felt that of all sinners I was the worst. I thought that I would die right then, and with what I supposed was my last breath, I flung up to heaven a cry for mercy …” Jasper was so overcome with joy that he could not refrain from shouting praises to the Lord. His owner, Sam Hargrove, came to see what all the commotion was about; Jasper related to him his conversion experience. Hargrove instructed Jasper to, “Tell everyone in the warehouse and then go home and tell your family, friends, and neighbors and anyone who would listen what God has done for you.”
He was baptized in First African Baptist Church in Richmond, and on that same day he preached a funeral sermon. He did so well that no one wanted to send a loved one to glory without a sermon by John Jasper. His fame as a preacher spread far and wide and over the next 25 years this slave would become the most popular black preacher in Virginia. Thousands would attend a funeral when it was announced that John Jasper would be preaching. He often preached as a supply at various churches and when people heard that Jasper would be speaking even the white ministers saw a significant decrease in their attendance.
William Hatcher, famous Richmond pastor and Jasper’s biographer, described his unique preaching style, “Shades of our Anglo-Saxon Fathers! Did mortal lips ever gush with such torrents of horrible English! Hardly a word came out clothed and in its right mind. And gestures! He circled around the pulpit with his ankle in his hand; and laughed and sang and shouted and acted about a dozen characters within the space of three minutes. Meanwhile, in spite of these things, he was pouring out a gospel sermon red hot, full of love, full of invective, full of tenderness, full of bitterness, full of tears, full of every passion that ever flamed in the human breast. He was a theater within himself …”
The Civil War brought John Jasper freedom and produced a dramatic change to his life and ministry. In 1867, 55-year-old John Jasper founded the Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church with nine members. Every Sunday the people of Richmond would observe John Jasper leading his congregation to the James River for a baptismal service. He once baptized 300 in two hours. At John Jasper’s death in 1901, the church had over 2,000 members. Amazingly, one third of the congregation was white.
However, Jasper’s ministry was not without controversy. His most famous sermon, which he preached over 250 times and always by request, “De Sun Do Move,” produced both praise and ridicule. His hermeneutics might have been faulty but his child-like faith and his confidence in the Word of God usually won over his harshest critics. A Richmond reporter told of his response to Jasper’s famous sermon: “I found myself unable to refrain from laughing and crying, and when he asked all who believed ‘De Sun Do Move,’ I raised my hand, not because I believed the sun moved, but because I believed in John Jasper.”
John Jasper pastored Mount Zion for 34 years. He died March 28, 1901, at the age of 89. The Richmond paper announced the death of John Jasper on its front page. His last words were, “I have finished my work, I am waiting at the River, looking across for further orders.”