“The Meaning of Easter,” Sermon Delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: April 22, 1962?
Location: Atlanta, Ga.
Genre: Sermon
Topic: Martin Luther King, Jr. - Career in Ministry
Details
Drawing upon II Corinthians for his Easter sermon, King describes the African American experience of Good Friday: “We’ve known our Good Fridays in something called separate but equal, where there was always a strict enforcement of the separate without the slightest intention to abide by the equal.” Despite the bleak outlook of Good Friday, King maintains, “Easter is always around the corner” and Jesus’s resurrection serves as a contemporary “affirmation of the ultimate triumph of good.” Confronting those in his congregation who fear death, King concludes that they “don’t believe in God” and are not true Christians. “The Meaning of Easter,” King claims, is that “evil will not triumph in the universe,” and death is “an open door that leads men into life eternal.” In conclusion, King calls upon those in the church who have not yet claimed a spiritual home: “This is the moment of supreme opportunity. And what is a better day to unite with the church of God than on the day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?” The following transcript is taken from an audio recording of the service.
[choir sings] Now, will we now hum that very softly. [congregation hums] In the fourth chapter and the eighteenth verse of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “while we look not at the things which are things, but at the things which are not things: for the things which are things are temporary; but the things which are not things are eternal.” Well, we come again to Easter Sunday, and it is notorious indeed that this day brings people to church who will not be seen again in twelve months. For some, the Easter festival is little more than a fashion show; for others, it is little more than a national holiday with no semblance of a religious holy day. But perhaps for most of you assembled here this morning, Easter represents something more enduring and something deeper. It is a day above every day. It is a day that even surpasses the mystery and marvel of Christmas with all of the glory of the incarnation, for Easter asserts that man’s extremity is God’s opportunity. Easter affirms that what stops us does not stop God. (Yes) And that miracle is as much a part of the end as of the beginning. Above all, Easter provides the answers to the deepest queries of the human spirit, for Easter is more than a day of ostentatious show. It is the day that commemorates an event which provides answers to the questions which have puzzled the probing minds of philosophers and theologians and ordinary people of every generation. And so this morning I would like to use our text and the second letter of the Corinthians as a basis for our thinking together on the meaning of Easter.
Now let me say very quickly that Easter is an affirmation of the meaningfulness of the universe. There are those who try to tell us that the universe doesn’t have any meaning beyond the years that we spend on Earth and beyond the material objects that we are able to see or touch or feel. Professor Sorokin of Harvard University talks of the sensate civilization and so many people living this type of sensate civilization and this type of sensate life feeling that only those things which we can see and touch and feel and apply our five senses to have existence.1 Those people believe that the whole of life is little more than a fortuitous interplay of atoms and electrons and that at bottom the universe is going nowhere.
But then Easter comes to remind us that this universe has meaning, that it is not an accidental collision of atoms and electrons; that it is not an accidental interplay of other forces, but that at bottom there is a God in this universe who has injected meaning in it. And if we fail to see that, we fail to see the meaning of Easter, for that message still rings across the ages. The things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
And so Easter tells us something about ourselves; it tells us something about man; it tells us that we are more than bodies. It tells us that we are more than the stuff out of which we are made from a material point of view. Easter tells us that there is something deeper than all of this. I’ve mentioned to you before that a certain group of chemists who had a flair for statistics got together some years ago and thought to work out the value of man’s body in terms of the market value of that day. And after they had worked with this research for several weeks, they came out with this conclusion that the average man has enough fat in him to make about seven bars of soap, enough iron to make a medium-sized nail, enough sugar to fill a shaker, enough lime to whitewash a chicken coop, enough phosphorous to make about twenty-two hundred match sticks, enough magnesia, for about a dose of—enough magnesium, rather—for about a dose of magnesia, and a little sulfur. And when all of that was added up in terms of the market values of that day, it came to ninety-eight cents.2 Now that’s pretty cheap, isn’t it? I guess in these days when the standards of living are a little higher, you could get about a dollar and ninety-eight cents for the average man—and when I say man, I’m speaking in the generic sense; that includes women too. [Congregation:] (Yes) I guess you could get a dollar ninety-eight cents.3
But think of this, that this is about all you can get for the bodily makeup of man; this is all you can get for the, the material stuff of your being. But can you explain the poetic genius of a Shakespeare in terms of ninety-eight cents? Can you explain the artistic genius of a Michelangelo in terms of ninety-eight cents? (Make it plain, Make it plain) Can you explain the spiritual genius of a Jesus of Nazareth in terms of ninety-eight cents? Can you explain the mystery of the human heart, the magic of the human soul in terms of ninety-eight cents? Oh no! There is something in there that cannot be explained in dollars and cents. There is something in man that cannot be reduced to materialistic and biological terms. Man is a child of the Almighty God, made in His image, and he’s more than a tiny vagary of whirling electrons or whiffs of smoke from a limitless smolder. And oh no! Man is more than that, and Easter comes to tell us that over and over again—that you can’t explain man in terms of ninety-eight cents. There is something deep down within him that the Bible calls the image of God. There is something deep down within him that causes the psalmist to be right when he said that God “made him a little lower than the angels” and “crowned him with glory and honor.”4 (Yes sir, Yes Lord) There is something within man that tells us that he is a child of God and he is a being of spirit. The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are unseen are eternal, and there’s something in us that cannot be seen, but this is the eternality within man. And so Easter comes to refute materialism and to tell us once more that life is more than a physiological process with a physiological meaning. Life is the realm where God reigns (Yes) and injects His being into the veins of the universe. Easter comes to tell us that.
Now Easter means something else. It is an affirmation of the ultimate triumph of good. So often we are in despair because evil takes over. There is hardly anyone here this morning who has not seen evil on the throne. (Yes sir) You’ve seen it in your own individual life. (Yes) You try to be good and you try to do right, and you suffer. And then you see somebody out here who has never had any commitment to anything right or good and yet they seem to be prospering. (Preach) The eternal question comes to you that came in the book of Job years ago. This question always comes anew in every generation. Well, it does look at times that evil is winning out and let nobody fool you, evil is a reality. Now there are those who try to say that that evil doesn’t have any existence; they say it’s an illusion. And there are others who would say that it is an error of the mortal mind. They would try to deny the objectivity of evil. But Christianity has never affirmed this. It contends that evil does exist. Sometimes it sees it in a serpent who comes to inject the discord in the beautiful symphony of life in a garden.5 Sometimes it sees it in vicious men hanging the world’s most precious character on a cross between two thieves.6 (Yes) Sometimes it sees it in nagging injustice (Make it plain) and agonizing oppression. The Bible and Christianity are always clear on the fact that evil is a reality, but it goes on to contend that evil does not have the final word. It goes on to say that evil carries the seed of its own destruction.
There is a checkpoint in the universe. Evil cannot permanently organize itself. History is the long and tragic story of evil forces rising high only to be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. There is a law in the moral universe, a silent, invisible imperative akin to the laws in the physical universe, which reminds us that life will only work a certain way. The Hitlers and the Mussolinis may have their day, and for a period they may wield great power, spreading themselves like a green bay tree. But soon they are cut down like the grass and wither as the green herb. This is the story of life, and my friends, this morning Easter comes to tell us that Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the drums of Easter. Somehow, my friends, Easter comes to remind us that evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy the palace and Christ the cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C. (Right) so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. There is something in Easter to remind us that evil cannot last forever (Yes) and that the forces of goodwill eventually triumph.
Now we’ve seen this in the modern world, I’ve pointed it out to you before. An evil got loose in this world called colonialism. And you know what happened as a result of this evil. The major Western powers got together, and what did they do? Many of them went over in Africa and Asia, where most of the peoples of the world live, and they got those people and dominated them politically and exploited them economically, segregated them and humiliated them. You look in those countries, and you see how they have had to live under the dark and oppressive night of colonialism. It looked like they would never get out. Something started happening (Yes); the wind of change started blowing; forces of the modern universe started working. And all of these things came to the point of bringing an end to colonialism, and do you know that out of the one billion seven hundred million people in Asia and Africa who were formerly colonial subjects, more than one billion five hundred million of them have their independence today. Back just twenty-five years ago there were only three independent countries in the whole of Africa. (That’s right) I remember when Mrs. King and I went to Ghana in West Africa to attend the independence celebration in 1957, there were only eight independent countries in the whole of Africa.7 And did you know that this morning there are twenty-nine independent countries in the continent of Africa. (Yes sir)
All of these things reveal to us that evil may occupy the throne for a day (Make it plain), it cannot last forever. No, we in America have known our Good Fridays. (Yes sir) They’ve come to us in various forms. (Well) We’ve known our Good Fridays in the long nights of economic injustice. We’ve known our Good Fridays in something called separate but equal (Yes sir), where there was always a strict enforcement of the separate without the slightest intention to abide by the equal.8 We’ve known our Good Fridays. (Yes sir) In the past, thousands and millions of Negroes have been stripped of their personhood. We’ve known our Good Fridays in the fact that we’ve seen with our own eyes police brutality. We’ve known our Good Fridays in the fact that we’ve known tens and twenties and thirties and forties and fifties of Negroes being lynched in one year. We’ve known our Good Fridays in the fact that we’ve often gone downtown to get a little coffee and a hamburger only to be told that we couldn’t stop. We’ve known our Good Fridays (Yes) in the fact that we’ve so often had to go to the back. We’ve known our Good Fridays in the fact that so often we have had to live with the Ku Klux Klan marching on [the?] outside of our doors. (Yes, Yes) But I tell you Easter is always around the corner: never forget. (Yes sir, Yes)
In these same places where we’ve known Good Friday, we’ve known Easter. And this morning, in those same stores (Make it plain) that would not feed us last year, we can eat there this morning: Easter has come. This morning, in those same places where we had to go to the back, we can now go to the front: (Yes) Easter has come. (Yes) In those same places where lynchings occurred, the Tuskegee Institute had the report last year that there was not a single lynching (Make it plain): Easter has come.9 And all I am saying this morning is that Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but one day (One day) Easter is coming. (Make it plain, Yes)
There is a third day (Third day), and I’m here to tell you this morning (We’re on our way), segregation is on its death bed. (Yes sir) Why is it on its death bed? (It’s done) Not merely because the Supreme Court of this nation examined the legal body of segregation and pronounced it constitutionally dead. (Yes sir) Not merely because millions of white people gained a nagging conscience about segregation. (Yes) Not merely because the Negro himself is finally against it. But segregation is dead today because there is always an Easter in this universe to come to block out the darkness of Good Friday. (Yes) And this is the story of the Easter message: it says to us that right will ultimately triumph. (Yes)
And so this morning—I don’t know about you, but I’m not worried. (Not worried brother) I’m not worried because there is a [final?] law in this universe which justifies a man like Carlyle in saying, “No lie can live forever.”10 I’m not worried this morning because Victor Hugo was right in Les Misérables when he talked about when he talked about Napoleon and the fact that Waterloo “is not merely a crease on the map, but it is a symbol of the eternal doom of every Napoleon.”11 I’m not worried this morning (Not worried) because there is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying, “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.”12 (Yes) I’m not worried this morning because there is something in this universe that justifies the Bible in saying, “You shall reap what you sow.”13 I’m not worried this morning (Not worried) because there is something in this universe that justifies James Russell Lowell in saying, “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne (Yes),—/Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, /Standeth God within the shadows (Yes), keeping watch above his own.”14 I’m not worried this morning (Worried) because Easter is coming (Yes, It is), and the Easter message is always the message of hope. The Easter message says that ultimately evil must give way (Yes) to the triumphant march of the drums of goodness.
And there is a final thought I want to bring out: it is Easter is an affirmation of the fact that death is not the end. (Yes sir, Talk to me) Somebody here this morning is worrying about death. Well, if you are, you’re not a Christian. (That’s right, Make it plain) If you are, you don’t believe in God. (Go ahead) Somebody here this morning is afraid to get up in an airplane because it might drop. If you are, you don’t have any faith in God. (Make it plain) If it drops, so what? (So what, Yeah) The Christian affirmation is that a man or a woman developed the capacity that he does not fear death (That’s right) because he knows that death is not the end. (Amen, All right, Amen) Death is merely a sort of turn in the road of the universe; it’s not the end. (No sir) And this earthly life is merely the embryonic prelude to a new awakening. This is the Easter affirmation (Yes sir), and that tomb is empty. That tomb where they laid Jesus—is empty (Yes) and it’s empty forever. He, in His own life and in His own death and in His own resurrection, came to reveal to us that death is not the end. What are you [worried?] about? (Not worried) You come now to the evening of life (Yes sir), then to the morning of childhood, move through the noon of adulthood, and now you are moving toward the evening of life—are you worried (No) that death is around the corner? What are you worrying about? (Nothing) Jesus has fixed that up eternally (Yes), that death is not the end.15 This morning somebody will see that. Something will happen in your life to cause you to go through life not worrying about death (Yes) because you know that this has been eternally fixed. (Yes)
And there is something that we call the immortality of the soul. And it must be true in order for the universe to be rational. If everything ends with the grave, this universe doesn’t have a bit of rationality. (Not a bit, Not a bit) In order for this universe to have meaning, there must be something beyond death. (Right) There must be a wedding of virtue and happiness, and we don’t get it in this world as I said a few minutes ago. The Bible is right when it stresses the point, back from Deuteronomy on up, that there must be a wedding of virtue and happiness. And it is no sign that if you are virtuous in this world, you will always be happy. So there must be life after this world in order to make for the final (Yes) wedding of virtue and happiness, for what do we see in this life?16 We see many situations where there is a triumph of that which is unjust for the moment. We see that for the moment where there is a triumph of that which is evil, as I just said a few minutes ago. But in order for the universe to be just and rational, there must be a wedding of happiness and virtue.
The other thing is this: that God has given all of us an infinite duty and yet we only have finite time to finish it. What is every life but Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony?17 No man or woman ever finishes what he starts out to do. God always gives us an infinite duty and we need infinite time to complete it. And so there must be immortality in order to allow us to finish the unfinished work that we can never finish in this life. (That’s right)
And then another thing that tells us that there is something beyond this is the fact that that everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. (Yes) You see, they’re temporal (Yes)—most things that we see are temporal (Yes), but the unseen is eternal. The things about you that are eternal are things you can never see. (Yes, Amen) Look in the mirror, and you can see your body, but one day that’s gone. (Yes) Look in the mirror—you can see your beautiful face, but one day that’s going. (Yes) Look in the mirror—you can see your beautiful hair with all of its black strands, but one day the long winters of night will creep up upon you. (Yes) The long days of the years will creep up upon you. That’s going; there is nothing permanent about that. (Amen)
There is something that you can never see through a mirror, because it is eternal. That is your soul (Yes sir); that is your personality (Yes, Yes); and that is that something that lives on. (Yes, Yes) Go out at night and look up at the stars. You can see them; they are temporal. (Yes, Yes) But there is something that holds them there called the law of gravitation—you can never see that. (That’s right) Look at Ebenezer Church today; this old building one day is going down. (Yes sir) You can see that; you can see this building that we are trying to pay out of debt right now; you can see it. One day it’s going down, but there is something behind it that you can never see. You can never see the love and the faith and the hope of these people who are struggling to raise seventy-five dollars to pay it out of debt.18 (Yes) You can never see the mind of the architect who drew the blueprint. And this goes right through life and the universe: everything that we see is something cast by that (Yes) which we do not see.
And so this morning, even though you can’t see the soul, it has reality. And I’m convinced more than ever before in the immortality of the soul. I’m sorry this morning that I can’t describe heaven to you. Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us that it is dangerous to try to give the temperature of hell or the quality of heaven.19 I’m sorry I can’t give it to you this morning. I don’t know all of the, I don’t know all of the makeup of heaven (Not right here), but the beautiful thing is that that I know who’s there. (Who’s there, Yes) Somebody here tonight may have a son up in New York City and you’ve never been there—maybe you’ve lived in the rural area all of your life, you’ve gotten to Atlanta, but way off is a son or daughter up in New York. And there with all of its skyscraping buildings (Yes), there with its dashing subways (Make it plain), and there with all of the fascinating things that have been created by man—and one day he sends you a little money to come to visit him in New York. And you get on the train—trains are not the thing that inspires you about New York as you ride up the road on the Silver Comet.20 It’s not its skyscraping buildings—you aren’t concerned about that. (Yes) You wouldn’t know how to picture them because you’ve never seen a skyscraper maybe. (Preach) You wouldn’t know how to picture the Empire State Building because you’ve never seen it maybe. You will never know how to picture the subway because you’ve never seen it. But as you move across the continent, something inspires you as you go on up there, and that is the fact that you know who’s in New York. (Amen) And it is the pull of that son (Yes) and the power of that son (Yes) that makes the trip meaningful. (Yes) Not the skyscraping buildings, not the externals of New York (No), but the internal longing to see your son.
And I close this morning by saying I do not know what heaven is like. (Yes, Make it plain) I do not know the furniture of heaven or what the streets are made like. (Yes) I don’t even know if heaven is a place in the sense that we know place, but I know who’s there. (Yes) And I know that Jesus is there. (Oh yes) I know that some loved one is there. (Yes) I know that someone who’s struggled along the way of life is there. (Yes) This is the thing that gives meaning to heaven, and therefore I say that this corruptible shall take on incorruption (Yes sir), and this mortal shall take on immortality.
Once more we must say over and over again that the things seen are temporal and the things unseen are eternal. This is what the Easter message tells us. Go out this morning—go out into your homes, into your communities knowing that Easter has brought out the new ray of hope (Yes sir) that tells us that there is meaning in the universe. It tells us that evil will not triumph in the universe, and it tells us that death is not the end. It is an open door (Yes) that leads men into life eternal.
We open the doors of the church now, and there may be someone here this morning (That’s right) who has never been a member of the church. I’m sure there is someone here this morning who has not united with the church although you live in this community. If you are here this morning as we sing together “He Lives,” hymn number 279, as we think of a living Christ (Yes), we think of the living Savior, who this morning will make the decision. Wherever you are, come this morning at this time, at this [organ plays] moment, will you make that decision? Wherever you are, I know there is someone here this morning who needs to come into the church (Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord), who needs to accept Christ. Are you here this morning? [congregation sings] Is there one who make that decision this morning? All, let us stand on the next stanza. We still bid you come, wherever you are. Who this morning will make that decision? [congregation sings]
Now, just before we sing that last stanza, I know this morning that there is someone here, I know that this morning there’s someone here who is not a member of a church in Atlanta. There’s someone here this morning waiting for a more appropriate time. There’s someone here saying that that “I can make up my mind a little later.” But I want to say to you this morning that this is your opportunity now. Don’t let it be said too late. (That’s right) This is the moment of supreme opportunity. (Yes sir) And what is a better day to unite with the church of God (Yes, Yes) than on the day when we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Who will this morning allow Him to live in your life by making a decision? I don’t know your name; I don’t know where you are sitting; but you are here, and we sing this last stanza for you. Wherever you are, come now. [congregation continues singing]
Thank you. May we remain standing. We are asking that all of you will be back for the evening worship service this evening at 7:30. Will we all be back on time at 7:30 this evening. May we all turn now to the closing hymn. It’s not a hymn this morning; it is the Hallelujah Chorus, one of the greatest anthems in all Christendom. (Hymn number 3, now) After that, all members will remain seated. We’ll take those seats after the benediction. We want to see all members of the church, and we’re strongly urging you to stay, every member, please stay for just a few minutes. Hallelujah Chorus. [congregation sings]
The Lord bless Thee and keep Thee; the Lord make His face to shine upon Thee and be gracious unto Thee; the Lord lift up the light as his count [recording interrupted]21
1. Pitirim Alexandrovitch Sorokin (1889–1968) was a Russian-born sociologist who characterized twentieth-century Western industrial society as “sensate,” possessing a reality that is perceived largely through the senses.
2. Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of Riverside Church, also used this illustration in his sermon “There Is No Death” (Successful Christian Living [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1937], pp. 265–266). King annotated a copy of Fosdick’s book and kept it in his personal library.
3. Cf. Marshall Dawson, Nineteenth Century Evolution and After: A Study of Personal Forces Affecting the Social Process, in the Light of the Life-Sciences and Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1923), p. 19.
4. Cf. Psalm 8:5.
5. Genesis 3:1–7.
6. Cf. Luke 23:33.
7. For more on the Kings’ trip to Ghana, see Introduction in Papers 4:7–10.
8. In 1896 the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson established the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
9. The Tuskegee lynching study noted that, including the killings of Emmett Till (1955) and Mack Charles Parker (1959), three African Americans were lynched in 1955, one in 1959, and one in 1961. No African Americans were lynched in 1960.
10. Cf. Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (1837), vol. 1, book 6, chap. 3.
11. Cf. Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (New York: A. L. Burt, 1862), pp. 337–338.
12. Cf. William Cullen Bryant, “The Battlefield” (1839), stanza 9.
13. Cf. Galatians 6:7.
14. Cf. James Russell Lowell, “The Present Crisis” (1844), stanza 8. King’s phrasing closely resembles a sermon by Harry Emerson Fosdick: “There is something in this universe beside matter and motion. There is something here that justifies Carlyle in saying, ‘No lie can live forever’.… and Lowell in saying, ‘Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—/Yet that scaffold sways the future’”(Fosdick, “Why We Believe in God,” On Being Fit to Live With: Sermons on Post-War Christianity [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946], p. 94). King annotated his copy of Fosdick’s book.
15. Amos John Traver, The Christ Who Is All (Philadelphia: The United Lutheran Publication House, 1929), p. 95: “Death is but a comma in the unending sentence.”
16. In his notes on Jeremiah 12:1, King wrote: “If God is justice there must somehow and sometime {somewhere} be a wedding of virtue and happiness. This doesn’t always take place in life as Jeremiah so candidly points out. What then is the solution? It seems to me that the only solution to this problem is found in the doctrine of personal immortality” (King, Notecards on Books of the Old Testament, 22 September 1952–28 January 1953, in Papers 2:166).
17. Franz Schubert (1797–1828), an Austrian composer, completed only two movements of his eighth symphony.
18. Ebenezer Baptist Church had launched a fundraising drive to pay off its $50,000 debt in honor of its 75th anniversary, asking each of its members to contribute a minimum of seventy-five dollars (King, Notes on Ebenezer’s 75th anniversary fundraising drive, December 1961–May 1962).
19. Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, vol. 2, Human Destiny (New York: Scribner’s, 1953), p. 294: “It is unwise for Christians to claim any knowledge of either the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell.”
20. The Silver Comet, a passenger train operated by Seaboard Air Lines, ran between New York and Birmingham, Alabama.
21. Cf. Numbers 6:24–26.
Source: MLKEC-INP, Martin Luther King, Jr. Estate Collection.