Sometimes I have more to say when I reflect on the memory of one of my greatest heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love Dr. King because of his intellect, faith, imperfections, vulnerability, sensitivity, consistency, and commitment to a cause greater than himself.

I love Dr. King as a fellow believer and brother in Jesus Christ, as a fellow pastor, and as a man who struggled with the meaning of his times in the light of theological realities.

I honor Dr. King as an overcomer who believed that all unmerited suffering was redemptive.

I honor and love him because at the core of his philosophy was a rugged theology of and commitment to love.

I honor and love Dr. King because he demonstrated that peaceful  resistance to evil can be more powerful than violence or force.

He lived out that dimension of Jesus' example meeting external strength with inner strength, accepting the consequences of taking a stand, and offering one's life in the service of God and others.

We live in an era when it is respectable to honor Martin King, but everything he taught and demonstrated is up for grabs. We are drifting into the very old notion that only force can accomplish good and that the only security we can know is that of worldly power.

But that kind of power shifts, waxes, wanes, and changes hands. The strength Dr. King knew and demonstrated was the strength to love.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a human being, flawed, sometimes troubled, but overcoming in every attitude and action. He was playful and fun-loving and found joy in sorrow and in the work to which he had reportedly been reluctantly called.

In the end he said, "I just want to do God's will." As if he saw his own death, his dream became the dream for a generation to come after him. It was not so important for him to go to the promised land because he saw it. It became a promised land for all people.

It is a good thing that we pause today to reflect upon this great American life, this Christian life, because what he dreamed and lived has significance for all of us. His legacy has freed many of us in ways we do not even realize.