"Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men"

I try to post uplifting things to point us towards the birth of Christ in this season of Hope. And yet, I don't want to ignore the shadow of unrest and un-hope that Martin, Brown and Garner's deaths and un-justices have cast over this country and this season. In trying to think of what I could share, I found a sermon that Martin Luther King Jr. gave at Christmas in 1967 (shortly before his own untimely death). I don't have an agenda, I just want to share his words.


Here are two excerpts:

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 good will toward all men can no longer be dismissed as a kind of pious dream of some Utopian. If we don’t have good will 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 Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete….

If there is to be peace on earth and good will 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 [Thomas] Carlyle in saying, "No lie can live forever." And so this is our faith, as we continue to hope for peace on earth and good will toward men: let us know that in the process we have cosmic companionship.

(Full sermon text) 

 

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 2:14 (KJV)