Roman 5:1-5  (NIV) 
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have* peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we* boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we* also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  (NIV)  

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have* peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we* boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we* also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. 

Jesus suffered a tragedy of cruel, unwarranted murder of his dear friend and cousin, John the Baptist. A beloved prophet to many, John heralded Jesus’ arrival and baptized him to begin his ministry. But King Herod Antipas later imprisoned John for rebuking him for his unlawful marriage to Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother. That was a no-no, tantamount to committing incest.

The story is found in Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels. But I’ll spare you the gory details of John’s beheading, which was requested by Herodias through her daughter Salome after she danced for Herod. Suffice it to say that after he was brutally decapitated, John became a martyr to many; and his execution showed how easily an unscrupulous ruler with unchecked power can use violence to silence any resistance to his evil corruption.

But how does Jesus respond to the horror of John’s murder when he hears about it? Well, as you might expect, he feels profound sorrow in his human heart; and he goes to a deserted place to find solitude so he can mourn his dear cousin’s death. However, that much-needed time to grieve is brief because a large crowd soon finds him and solicits his compassionate ministry of healing.

So, Jesus turns away from his own emotional needs to address their physical needs.  He begins to heal more sick people by the thousands; and then he feeds a multitude of hungry mouths, demonstrating that his ministry to others must continue despite his own personal trauma. He knows he doesn’t have much time left to do this ministry--especially to teach people how to prepare themselves to live in the Kingdom of God by living for the Kingdom of God. Like John, he too will soon die an excruciating, public death ordered of another ruthless ruler, Pontius Pilate.

So, in the midst of his own darkness, his own horror, his own despair, Jesus is still bearing the light of hope to his despairing, downtrodden people—gifting them with a radiant hope that through his sacrifice they might someday enter into God’s glory. 

His selfless example can teach us Christians a valuable lesson about ministering to others, about helping and serving others, about inspiring hope in others, even when we are hurting. We too can move beyond whatever hurt or horror we may be experiencing or feeling in our lives when we turn from our own suffering to offer healing and hope to others—to become Salt & Light for this fallen world that’s in such great need. 

Indeed, it is an important lesson also exemplified by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights icon and self-described “drum major for justice.” Our nation recently celebrated his birthday and his significant legacy of love and leadership. We know that MLK Day is not supposed to be just a holiday for rest and recreation. In fact, it was created to be a day of both solemn remembrance and self-sacrificing service to others in King’s memory.

There were nonviolent social protest activities that occurred in honor of Dr. King, since that is what he so skillfully taught us to do during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s—a movement that sought to change and redeem America’s bitter history of racial injustice. King tried to teach us then what other drum majors for justice are still trying to teach us today: how to overcome violence with nonviolence and hate with love, how to seek an end to war through peacemaking, and how to become God’s beloved community by appealing to the better angels of our nature.

I watched a video of Dr. King’s final speech given the night before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. I could see the stress and fatigue in his weary eyes. It’s impossible to miss. The threats against his life were increasing and becoming more serious, especially when he began to speak out against out against the bloody, wasteful war in Vietnam.

He was extremely busy in those final days, trying to organize a second March on Washington to advocate for freedom and economic justice for all Americans. But he stepped away from all that rigorous planning to go to Memphis, Tenn., so he could help Black sanitation workers march for fair wages, human dignity and equal treatment by the city. The city had convinced the court to issue an injunction to stop the next day’s march. But during a church rally that night Martin called on the powers that be to let that march go forward, to honor the people’s First Amendment right to “protest for right,” as he said in his speech. 

Martin’s powerful words in that memorable speech spoke of deep uncertainty but never of despair. With his compelling imagination and eloquence, he told the crowd that God had allowed him to go up to the mountaintop and look over, where he could see their Promised Land of freedom and justice. He admitted that he might not get there with them, but that “We as a people will get to the Promised Land.”

Martin had much in common with Jesus. He too sensed that his time was short. But as he told the crowd, he too just wanted to do God’s will. He had suffered a lot; and he knew that his people had suffered, too. But like the Apostle Paul, he knew that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.  

No doubt that was the essential, overarching, undergirding message of Martin’s April 3rd Mountaintop speech. And no doubt, it was also key to Jesus’ message of hope to the masses of people he led. And no doubt, that message of perseverance, character and hope is essential for people who are protesting right now for justice, compassion and respect for civil rights in Minneapolis, in Portland, in New Orleans and other cities.

Friends, this is a time for us to remember and embrace our baptismal vows—especially the to “resist evil and injustice in all its forms.”

This is a time for us to have perseverance in the arduous struggle for good over evil and for love over hate, a struggle to welcome the sojourner in our midst, as God tells us to do, and a struggle to bring peace with justice to our communities and to our world.

It’s time for the character of human, Christian decency to be revealed in us, because that is what our love and devotion to Christ can instill in us if we let it. It is the kind of character that the prophet Micah calls for in Micah 6:8, when he poses the question we should all be asking and answering each day of our lives: “What is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?”

I promise you that our perseverance, our character and our hope will not lead to disappointment nor “put us to shame,” as Paul writes, “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, a Spirit who has been given to us”—we who have been justified through our faith and who right now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.