By Vincent L. Hall
There was a very popular and effective catchphrase that circulated throughout the nation and especially among Christians. “WWJD or What Would Jesus Do” was the question. It was posed at every human dilemma, large or small. WWJD?
However, most of you learned during this last election cycle that the Jesus in “them” obviously ain’t like the Jesus in “us.” Donald Trump and his MAGA ilk, in the words of Kendrick Lamar; “They not like us.”
Their Jesus is cruel!
So, since Jesus is so controversial, my pages turn from the Bible and toward the writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He wasn’t Jesus, but his life probably best resembles the Jesus I know.
Listen to excerpts from his last Christmas sermon he delivered on December 22, 1967, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, just four months before his death.
“Peace on Earth…
This Christmas season finds us a rather bewildered human race. We have neither peace within nor peace without. Everywhere paralyzing fears harrow people by day and haunt them by night. Our world is sick with war; everywhere we turn we see its ominous possibilities.
And yet, my friends, the Christmas hope for peace and goodwill toward all men can
no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some utopian. If we don’t have goodwill toward men in this world, we will destroy ourselves by the misuse of our own instruments and our own power. Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete.
And so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war — and so let us this morning think anew on the meaning of that Christmas hope: “Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men.” And as we explore these conditions, I would like to suggest that modern man really go all out to study the meaning of nonviolence, its philosophy and its strategy.
We have experimented with the meaning of nonviolence in our struggle for racial justice in the United States, but now the time has come for man to experiment with non-violence in all areas of human conflict, and that means non-violence on an international scale.
If there is to be peace on earth and goodwill toward men, we must finally believe in the ultimate morality of the universe and believe that all reality hinges on moral foundations. Something must remind us of this as we once again stand in the Christmas season and think of the Easter season simultaneously, for the two somehow go together.
Christ came to show us the way. Men love darkness rather than the light, and they crucified Him, and there on Good Friday on the Cross it was still dark, but then Easter came, and Easter is an eternal reminder of the fact that the truth-crushed earth will rise again. Easter justifies Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.”
And so, this is our faith, as we continue to hope for peace on earth and goodwill toward men: let us know that in the process we have cosmic companionship.
I still have a dream this morning that one day every Negro in this country, every colored person in the world, will be judged on the basis of the content of his character rather than the color of his skin, and every man will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. I still have a dream today that in all of our state houses and city halls men will be elected to go there who will do justly and love mercy and walk humbly with our God! I still have a dream that with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism.
I still have a dream, because, you know, you can’t give up in life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have a dream.”
It looks rough right now, but Dr. King’s words leave us enough hope to dream of peace on earth and goodwill to all!
A long-time Texas Metro News columnist, Dallas native Vincent L. Hall is an author, writer, award-winning writer, and a lifelong Drapetomaniac.
