Good morning hagiophiles:
Today, when Jonathan Daniels faces off against Chief Seattle in the penultimate matchup of Lent Madness, also happens to also be the anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King.
Fifty five years ago today, Dr. King was murdered in Memphis, TN. He died for the same cause that Jonathan Daniels willingly laid down his life, because they believed that all men and women bear the image of God and thus are deserving of dignity. In that respect, Chief Seattle stands alongside them, for he saw in his people the same gifts of the Creator as were claimed by the colonists who dispossessed his people.
In all the tragedies of history, if we look hard enough, we can see what Dr. King saw, that the moral arc of the universe and of God’s purposes bends slowly but surely towards the good.
In that spirit, here is a small gift for Holy Week, some words of Dr. King on Easter:
Easter comes out ringing in terms that we all hear if we seek to hear it, that the soul of man is immortal. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ we have fit testimony that this earthly life is not the end, that death is just something of a turn in the road, that life moves down a continual moving river, and that death is just a little turn in the river, that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening, that death is not a period which ends this great sentence of life but a comma that punctuates it to more loftier significance. That is what it says. That is the meaning of Easter. That is the question that Easter answers – that death is not the end.
Source: “Questions That Easter Answers,” sermon, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, AL, April 21, 1957
Blessed be their memories, and blessed be your voting today.
Vote here: https://www.lentmadness.org/2023/04/chief-seattle-v-jonathan-myrick-daniels/
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