Martin Luther King's Birthday
Jonathan’s Journals
On January 16, Americans will celebrate a national holiday: the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember the day in 1986 I saw Ronald Reagan signing a declaration making the third Monday in January a federal holiday. On that day every year, we hear Martin Luther King’s sermons on the radio, TV stations play excerpts of some of his speeches, and many government agencies will be closed. How will we celebrate this day?
The fact is that many Americans won’t celebrate the holiday at all, some because they don’t think it should be a holiday in the first place. To some, Martin Luther King was just a meddling black preacher who foolishly mixed religion and politics. To others, he was a hero, proclaiming the Christian gospel of God’s love to all people. Still others want to recognize his impact strictly for its secular value in society and politics, without any appreciation for the religious basis of his life’s work. Some people point out his personal flaws and assume that this invalidates his public work, while others think his personal morality didn’t matter since he was doing such important public work.
My own view of Dr. King was that he was a Christian intellectual who was dragged somewhat against his will onto the national stage, where God used him in a wonderful and powerful way. As a young man, he received his Ph. D. in theology from Boston University and wanted to spend his days quietly as a pastor of a local church. As good as those plans were, God wanted even more. He became involved as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott (started by the refusal of Rosa Parks to sit at the back of a bus). After that, he received more and more publicity and found himself as the leader of a national movement for civil rights in our country.
On one special night, Dr. King was praying in his kitchen. He felt the overwhelming pressure of leading the bus boycott and was thinking that he wanted to give it all up. He had received several death threats, including threats to blow up his house while his family lay sleeping. As he was struggling in prayer with the momentum of the civil rights movement hanging in the balance, God suddenly gave him a calm re-assuring sense of peace. He described it this way: "I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.'"
Martin Luther King went on to stand up for justice and truth in many ways: working for racial equality and reconciliation, speaking up for poor workers (white and black) who were not being treated fairly, and standing up for peace, even in the midst of the Vietnam War. Dr. King never lost his faith in the gospel of Christ, which he always understood to be non-violent. His belief in non-violence was central to his understanding of Jesus, his work for racial justice, and his opposition to war.
As a preacher, I cannot help but be awed by his ability to move his listeners with the beauty of language and with the power of the biblical text. As I listen to the rhythmic cadences of speeches like, “I have a Dream,” I imagine that this must have been what it was like to hear prophets like Isaiah, Micah, or Amos preach. Give me the eloquence of his sermons over our modern-day power-point presentations any day.
As we now know, Dr. King also had feet of clay. Like many of the great people in the Bible, he had his tragic flaws. This should not cause us to disregard any of his faithful forms of Christian witness, but it should remind us of the mercy and greatness of God – that God can use even fallible creatures like you and me for his purposes in the world. On January 16, take a moment to pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the life and witness of Martin Luther King, Jr. Pray also that God will use us in our own time and place, just as He used Dr. King, to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18).
On January 16, Americans will celebrate a national holiday: the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember the day in 1986 I saw Ronald Reagan signing a declaration making the third Monday in January a federal holiday. On that day every year, we hear Martin Luther King’s sermons on the radio, TV stations play excerpts of some of his speeches, and many government agencies will be closed. How will we celebrate this day?
The fact is that many Americans won’t celebrate the holiday at all, some because they don’t think it should be a holiday in the first place. To some, Martin Luther King was just a meddling black preacher who foolishly mixed religion and politics. To others, he was a hero, proclaiming the Christian gospel of God’s love to all people. Still others want to recognize his impact strictly for its secular value in society and politics, without any appreciation for the religious basis of his life’s work. Some people point out his personal flaws and assume that this invalidates his public work, while others think his personal morality didn’t matter since he was doing such important public work.
My own view of Dr. King was that he was a Christian intellectual who was dragged somewhat against his will onto the national stage, where God used him in a wonderful and powerful way. As a young man, he received his Ph. D. in theology from Boston University and wanted to spend his days quietly as a pastor of a local church. As good as those plans were, God wanted even more. He became involved as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott (started by the refusal of Rosa Parks to sit at the back of a bus). After that, he received more and more publicity and found himself as the leader of a national movement for civil rights in our country.
On one special night, Dr. King was praying in his kitchen. He felt the overwhelming pressure of leading the bus boycott and was thinking that he wanted to give it all up. He had received several death threats, including threats to blow up his house while his family lay sleeping. As he was struggling in prayer with the momentum of the civil rights movement hanging in the balance, God suddenly gave him a calm re-assuring sense of peace. He described it this way: "I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.'"
Martin Luther King went on to stand up for justice and truth in many ways: working for racial equality and reconciliation, speaking up for poor workers (white and black) who were not being treated fairly, and standing up for peace, even in the midst of the Vietnam War. Dr. King never lost his faith in the gospel of Christ, which he always understood to be non-violent. His belief in non-violence was central to his understanding of Jesus, his work for racial justice, and his opposition to war.
As a preacher, I cannot help but be awed by his ability to move his listeners with the beauty of language and with the power of the biblical text. As I listen to the rhythmic cadences of speeches like, “I have a Dream,” I imagine that this must have been what it was like to hear prophets like Isaiah, Micah, or Amos preach. Give me the eloquence of his sermons over our modern-day power-point presentations any day.
As we now know, Dr. King also had feet of clay. Like many of the great people in the Bible, he had his tragic flaws. This should not cause us to disregard any of his faithful forms of Christian witness, but it should remind us of the mercy and greatness of God – that God can use even fallible creatures like you and me for his purposes in the world. On January 16, take a moment to pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God for the life and witness of Martin Luther King, Jr. Pray also that God will use us in our own time and place, just as He used Dr. King, to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18).
Peace,
Jonathan
posted by Jonathan Marlowe | 1:52 PM
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