Surrounders

On the first weekend of this year, organizers of the annual Peninsula-Delaware Conference Youth Rally in Ocean City, Maryland, were challenged by a blizzard that blew in the day before the rally began. The leaders had a difficult decision to make about cancelling or going ahead with the effort.

All cancellation decisions are difficult. But after much prayer, it was decided that the event should continue to go forward. The theme was “Marathon” and the key scripture verses were Hebrews 12:1-2.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings too closely; and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Throughout the rally, featured speakers and Christian rock bands emphasized the importance of endurance in the face of the challenges that are a key part of a life of faith in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is indeed the model, and our “way, truth and life” for this journey.

Arrested but undeterred

In a blog post titled “Ten Things You May Not Know about Martin Luther King, Jr.,” by Christopher Klein, published April 4, 2013, we read some interesting facts about the great civil rights leader who changed the world forever.

For example, I never knew that his birth name was “Michael” but was later changed to “Martin Luther” after his father went to Germany and learned about theologian Martin Luther’s pivotal Protestant Reformation work.  King’s father legally changed his own name as well.  The renaming was perhaps a premonition of the groundbreaking work that young Martin was later to accomplish.

I did not know that Dr. King started college at the age of 15, or that he survived a near-fatal assassination attempt by a woman who stabbed him with a letter opener in a department store.

I did not know that King’s mother was assassinated in 1974 by an armed intruder during a Sunday worship service while she was playing the organ. How did I miss this?  Church shootings are not new, although they are still rare. But they are becoming more common and more deadly. That tragic trend, as reported in our news media, makes them feel new to many of us.

On and on Klein’s article goes, offering amazing facts about the life of a man whose legacy continues to shine the light of truth and courage, of freedom and justice. Only that light can dispel the shadows of deception, cowardice, injustice and oppression that still enshroud our nation in its mistreatment of people without privilege or power.