Easter Delivers Messages Hope
You just have to listen.
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime. MLK, Jr.
I've lived through turbulent times. It has made me resilient.
On the evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated. He was fatally shot while standing on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, where King had traveled to support a sanitation workers’ strike. In the wake of his death, a wave of riots swept major cities across the country, while President Johnson declared a national day of mourning. (History Channel)
Seven days earlier President Johnson spoke to the American people on television's most watched night. "With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office — the presidency of this country," he said he would not run for re-election. He feared growing animosity and partisanship would irreparably divide us.
The night of April 4th, Bobbie Kennedy quelled a riot with an impassioned speech in Indianapolis. These are the most remembered words, "What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black." A little over two months later Bobbie Kennedy was assassinated.
We have not healed from our dysfunction brought about by continued fear of the other, bigotry, hatred, and racism.
It's Easter.
Jesus brought a message of hope, that all are created equal in the eyes of God, that we are to love on another, no exceptions. Is anybody listening?
You might be asking, "Jesus and the Christians? Aren't they all about exclusion? And what do they have to do with social justice? Quite a lot, actually.
A Christian vision of social justice
Conservative columnist David Brooks recently wrote an article about Christian Justice.
Brooks interviewed Esau McCaulley, a New Testament professor at Wheaton College and a contributing writer for New York Times opinion. "He described a distinctly Christian vision of social justice I found riveting and a little strange (in a good way) and important for everybody to hear, Christian and non-Christian, believer and nonbeliever."
"This vision begins with respect for the equal dignity of each person. It is based on the idea that we are all made in the image of God."
"Racism is a sin enmeshed with other sins, like greed and lust. Some people don’t like “sin” talk. But to cast racism as a sin is useful in many ways."
"A struggle against a sin is not the work of a week or a year, since sin keeps popping back up. But this vision has led to some of the most significant social justice victories in history: William Wilberforce’s fight against the slave trade, the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s and the Confessing Church’s struggle against Nazism. And, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement."
