Lock-ins and Martin Luther King, Jr.

So, I am getting ready for a lock-in tonight, at the church, for the youth group. I really don’t know how I got talked into this. Truly, I despise lock-ins. I never really liked them when I was a teenager…and back then, I could deal with the lack of sleep without feeling like a truck had run me over, backed up and run over me again…ad nauseum. Now that I have “one foot and three toes” in the grave—as one of my old youth group kids used to say (of course, that was a few years ago…so I am probably up to ‘one foot and four toes’ by now!)—I do not bounce back so quickly. I will come home and sleep after the lock-in…actually, after my Monday morning Bible study, which is after the lock-in (yes, this is truly the brain child of someone who is a great and formidable planning machine!). But, I guarantee that I will be walking around all week like I have a hang-over (or what I assume a hangover would be like, because the smallest bit of alcohol makes me so sleepy that I have never had occasion to know drunkenness. I fall asleep before that could happen. I have decided it is physiologically impossible for me to get drunk, not that I’d really want to…so I guess that’s a good thing!).

Lock-ins consist of lots of junk food, staying up all night, and usually some kind of drama (because, after all, we are talking about teenagers and hormones and all that). Junior high boys hyped up on mountain dew: that is something everyone should have to witness at least once in their lives. Certainly, the kids are fun and their energy amazes me. I am just old: creaky, ready to break a hip, need to take my teeth out at night OLD…ok, not really that old, but I will be feeling that lack o’ sleep for many days to come. I will try to blog about the experience on Monday night—after I have slept until I can’t sleep no more!

Since the momentous occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is what allows me to have a Sunday night lock-in at church, I will leave you with a beautiful offering (above...hopefully): MLK, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. (I have tried to post it three times and it has not showed up yet...so we may get three versions or none...we will see what happens!) Anyway, about MLK, Jr.: Boy, could that man preach! He could read the back of a cereal box and I would be ready to march the whole world over, eradicating any injustice which crossed my path. I invite you to listen to it and let it sink down deep into your soul. Do you, too, have a dream? I know that God has a great many dreams--and He invites us to be a part of them…which makes me think of a story I shared in my sermon this morning (cannot prove its historical accuracy, but it’s a great story…with an eternally true point). Read this first, then listen to the speech. After that, we will all be fired up enough to go fight the injustices of our world until this place really looks like “The Kingdom of God”. Someone I love dearly (named Jesus) said that the Kingdom of God is at hand…maybe we are supposed to help people see it.

Story:
Shortly after the culmination of the Second World War, a devastated city in England began its heartbreaking and weary work of restoration. In the old city square had stood a large statue of Jesus Christ with His hands outspread in an attitude of invitation. On the pedestal were carved the words, "Come unto me." In the process of the restoration of the statue, with the aid of master artists and sculptors, the figure eventually was reassembled, except for the hands of which no fragments could be discovered anywhere in the surrounding rubble. Someone made the suggestion that the artists, since the former hands could not be found, would have to fashion new hands. Later came a public protest, couched in the words, "No, leave Him without hands!" So today, in the public square of that English city, the restored statue of Christ stands without hands, and on its base are carved the words, "Christ has no hands but ours!"

Christ has no hands but yours…