January 17, 2022

For Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Day

Dr. King had a dream of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character instead of their skin color. In some ways, we've gotten a lot closer to that dream. In other ways, at this moment, we are living very far from his dream. There are many reasons why that is. Perhaps, though, it is always a struggle for a human here on earth to live very near that dream. It's difficult to think of a society which did. Those that even came close were still far from it in many ways. Given the failure of past and present all over the world, some may conclude that attempting to live out Dr. King's dream is futile.

I would contend that it is not. We do need to see clearly that failure in this area has plagued humanity. Indeed, we shall not appreciate the depth of the problem until we realize that this is a failure of humans all over the world and throughout history, rather than a failure of a particular society or two. That does not mean, however, that we should not do our part to live closer to the dream. We might reasonably wonder how we could hope to even come close to success when the record does not give us much hope. I would suggest we put our hope in the God that Dr. King trusted in, who promises a new world of reconciliation. If the hope were only for the future, that might promote carelessness or fanaticism. The God he trusted in also told us that in Jesus, we unite with people of other races. If we put our hope in this same Jesus, perhaps we'll grow closer to what Dr. King dreamed of.