Weekly Devotional Revolution and Reconciliation: A Holy Week Reflection Jess Lucas, Portfolio Analyst Monday, April 3, 2023 There are questions and concerns that often arise here in America when we …

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Weekly Devotional

Revolution and Reconciliation: A Holy Week Reflection
Jess Lucas, Portfolio Analyst
Monday, April 3, 2023

There are questions and concerns that often arise here in America when we attempt to reflect on our history of racial injustice. “Why are we digging up the past?”
“Haven’t we made so much progress since then?” “Can’t we just move on and focus on the present and future?” On the first weekend of March, I joined Nick Stonestreet—
along with Ruth Malhotra and a few friends of Ronald Blue Trust—for a Civil Rights Tour through Alabama hosted by the A.D. King Foundation. We stopped in Birmingham,
Montgomery, and Selma to learn more about key moments of tragedy and triumph in the Civil Rights Movement, to honor the many individuals who gave their lives for justice, and to commemorate the 58^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I found myself convicted by the connection between our past and present. As we learned more about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Reverend A.D. King, and countless others’ faithful commitment to justice informed by Christ’s love, I began to think differently about the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus as it requires us to remember His suffering before we can meaningfully move on to redemption and resurrection.

            When we gather at the Lord’s Table, we receive the Body and Blood of Christ broken and poured out for us. We remember God’s sacrifice and Christ’s suffering for us, so that we can live a New Life in Christ. To enter into this new life, we are called to repent of our sin before the Cross and accept responsibility for our Savior’s death. But as we all know, death does not have the final word. Christ is risen and our responsibility to bear witness to the Cross continues through our daily effort to be resurrected with
Christ as new people in God’s Kingdom. And yet, do we forget the Cross once we believe and live in light of the resurrection? No. Of course not. Rather, we are each called
to take up our cross in surrender. Though none of us were physically there at Golgotha, we sustain a living memory of the Cross of Christ, bear witness to it daily, and accept our responsibility to bring about God’s redemptive story.

Given the implications of the Christian story, I wonder whether it comes to bear on America’s history of racial injustice. Though none of us were there during slavery,
the Jim Crow South, and the many episodes of injustice that catalogue our past, do we have a responsibility to repent of our nation’s stain of injustice in order to make way
for God’s redemptive future?

            We began our Civil Rights Tour at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Here was a church that provided dignity and love to many Black citizens
living amongst hostility in a segregated Birmingham. It was there, on September 15, 1963, that a bomb exploded under the steps of the church killing four little girls:
14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, and Carole Robertson, and 11-year-old Cynthia Wesley. I was struck by the cruel hatred and sheer evil that compelled those white men to plant a bomb at a church—a place that served as a sanctuary for God’s children to remind themselves of the one who called them beloved image-bearers.  Just across the street was Kelly Ingram Park where, in May 1963, Black protestors seeking equality and dignity through non-violent direct action were infamously fire-hosed by police as vicious dogs lunged at the protesters. As we walked through the park filled with sculptures depicting the horrors of police brutality in 1963, I felt the need to mourn for the sacrifices of these protestors—courageous and selfless individuals who offered their bodies in a display of resilient love for the sake of freedom. I was reminded of Christ’s body given as the ultimate sacrifice for us. At the front of the park, Ruth noticed a stone inscribed with words so rarely displayed together: “Place of revolution and reconciliation.” Surely, the hill where Christ was crucified was a place of revolution in that the world was never the same after his death. Surely, God performed the ultimate act of reconciliation as Jesus breathed his last breath. Christ’s sacrifice reconciled us to Himself and to God our Father. In a profound demonstration of selfless courage, at Kelly Ingram Park these protestors sacrificed their bodies in hopes of revolutionary reconciliation for a racially fractured country. They may not have known it then, but their actions represented the demands of the Gospel and the sacrifice necessary to bring to fruition God’s promise of beloved community. We are indebted to their sacrifice which ought to remind us of our indebtedness to a crucified Christ—a debt we cannot repay. The gravity of these sacrifices compels us to maintain a posture of humility and repentance which manifests itself in active participation in the love and justice of God’s Kingdom. 

Dr. King famously preached, “I wish we could get to Easter without going to Good Friday, but history tells us that we got to go by Good Friday before we can get to
Easter” (Birth of a New Nation, 7 April 1957). May we never skip Good Friday. May we never attempt to minimize injustice and suffering so as to prevent the possibility of
redemption and reconciliation. May we believe the fact that “In all things God works for the good” (Romans 8:28), even amid terrible episodes of injustice and national
suffering. May we—as Christians whose hearts should break when God’s children suffer injustice—remember the sacrifices of the Black men and women who stood up for
love and justice. May we commit ourselves to remember the sin of injustice just as we live in remembrance of the Cross because we have faith in a God who resurrects and
redeems. It was at Calvary that justice and love converged. So, I pray we choose repentance, living as agents of God’s Kingdom and beloved community.

It was on Good Friday, April 12, 1963, that Dr. King was arrested for protesting against segregation. In Birmingham Jail he penned words that should continue to stir
and convict us: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work, time
itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation” (Letter from Birmingham Jail, 16 April 1963). As we approach Easter, may we aspire to be coworkers with God for
justice and love that knows no bounds.

Prayer Focus

Please join us in prayer this week for the topics highlighted in this month’s Prayer Guide.

 

 

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