Subtitle: A Lenten meditation on Luke 13.31-35
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This prophetic love didn’t die with Jesus. Countless are the examples throughout human history.
On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Memphis to lead yet another non-violent march to protest the denial of equal rights. A nearly successful attempt already had been made on his life, and detractors and supporters had urged him not to come. Yet, it was a prophet’s love that compelled him to be on his way. On the eve of his assassination, King, addressing a gathering, closed what would be his final sermon, saying:
I don’t know what will happen…but it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life…but I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will…And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But…we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[1]
This prophetic love didn’t die with Martin. Countless still are the examples. So, I wonder about me?
In my continued Lenten self-examination, I ask: What is my “another authority”? My “heavenly cause”? My power greater than fear? What glory have I seen?
And most painfully, yet necessarily especially: What is my vocation (from the Latin, vocare, “to call”) of prophetic love that pulls, pushes me to be and to do the best for another even at the risk, the cost of death?
For I have come to believe that only when I know for what and for whom I, in the power of love, am willing to die, then will I, can I know what it is – freely, fully, faithfully – to live.
© 2022 PRA
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[1] From the sermon, I See the Promised Land, preached at Mason Temple, Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968.
occasional observations of mind and heart, soul and spirit 