PROMISED LANDS

"the almighty has his own purposes"
a. lincoln, from his second inaugural address


They say ol' Moses didn’t get to go to the Promised Land. Whatever the reason for that I can’t imagine.

Dr. Martin Luther King gave his last sermon on April 2nd 1968. I say sermon, because Dr. king was a preacher. His part in the Civil Rights Movement is undeniable, but first and foremost he was a preacher.
He says in this sermon that “longevity has its place” but that he wouldn’t be concerned about that, because he had “Been to the Mountaintop” and he had "seen the Promised Land", and that he feared no man.
Prophetically, he states that he may not get to the Promised Land, but that we would get there as a people.
I see a real weariness and sadness in his face as he gives this last sermon.
The next day he was assassinated on a balcony at a Memphis Hotel.



There are some quite stunning coincidences and parallels in American History.
It was the 41st Anniversary of Kings death on April 3 last week and today is the 144th Anniversary of Abraham Lincolns death.
These two Americans are so incredibly and intricately connected it almost hurts.

Lincoln had spent 4 years in the midst of a great Civil War, where Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers. (620,000)
Congress passed the Act of 1862 establishing an Income Tax in order to finance the War and preserve the Union
With the collapse of the south imminent, Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address on March 4th 1865 and closed with these famous words:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Lee surrendered his great Army of Northern Virginia on April 9th, 1865.
Lincoln had saved the Union, and freed the country of the scourge of slavery.
He described the previous four years by saying he felt he had "lived a long hard nightmare".
For five days he enjoyed his country at peace before John Wilkes Booth murdered him at Fords Theater.
In his billfold at the time of his death there were 6 newspaper clippings and a Confederate Five Dollar bill.

It seems to me that just like Moses and Dr. King, he never made it to the Promised land, and that sometimes we are only allowed to do so much.

Ah, Moses!
We are only allowed to do so much.
We are only allowed to do so much.