"Then Jesus told His disciples, 'If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.'" (Matthew 16:24-25 NRSV)
It's hard to read any of the sermons the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached about death and heaven without hearing echoes of gunshots. "The minute you conquer the fear of death, at that moment you are free," he said in 1963. "I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
Decades later, these words still inspire faith and courage, said social activist Johann Christoph Arnold, who marched with King in the Civil Rights Movement. That's why [he]… included this quotation in his most recent book, "Seeking Peace".
This was the book that Cassie Bernall and other teenagers at Littleton's West Bowles Community Church were supposed to have discussed on the evening of April 20, 1999. After that tragic day at Columbine High School, Bernall's parents showed Arnold her copy of "Seeking Peace", with its handwritten notes for the study session that was never held. Cassie had boldly underlined King's thoughts on death. Did she hear echoes of gunshots?
"Why did these words speak to her at such a young age? It is such a great mystery," said Arnold. "But I do know this. She had found something she was willing to live for, and even to die for, and that made all the difference in her life."
-- Syndicated columnist Terry Mattingly, April 1999 (Scripture added)
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