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Delivering Saviors
 Those of us from the South know so well the struggle. We’ve climbed many a hill but missed the view. We let our eyes wander across the Mississippi River to see the endless sky and Pat Tigrett’s lit up bridge and summer cotton crops, as we watch the violent storms seeming as though they would leap across the river and skip far enough away to miss our downtown that holds so much history. We cherish Beale Street but mostly the very place where our modern savior Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. breathed his last breath, due to a crazy white person following orders from either the mafia or the then Memphis police to get rid of him.
It was on the second balcony of a simple hotel as he and a three African American leaders, good trusting friends, were enjoying the outside view, pointing at some Memphis landmark to the north west or maybe where Dr. King was to speak that night, trying to draw attention to the blight of racism. Being a minister Dr. King was the leading civil rights protestor, who had been arrested 29 times and assaulted four times, and had garnered the Nobel Peace Prize laureate because he went about it with non-violence and civil disobedience. But for this late afternoon, his charge for being in Memphis was to help support the sanitation workers get a better, more humanly wage and working conditions. And from that came the never-forgotten-march I AM A MAN.
My dearest friend Deanie Parker remembers it well, and the pain has never left her heart. She remembers that on the balcony of the 2nd floor of the two story building Billy Kyles, Andrew Young and Jessie Jackson were talking to a musician, Ben Branch, standing down below looking up, who was getting the word of what song Dr. King preferred at the church service that night. He had requested “Precious Love” when a shot ran out from across the street. The murderer, James Earl Ray, a white racist, had shot him from a bathtub.
Yes, It was April 3, 1968 at 6:01 P.M. The shot ran out so long and loud. That shot which crushed one of the greatest men to walk on this earth. Dr King fell. And the whole world inhaled and screamed. Violence was the victor again. As he folded up to the ground, his friends were pointing to where the shot came from, a flop house directly across the street. And the Lorraine Motel would never be the same again. The once Windsorlorrine Hotel (founded 1925) had been sold to popular Walter Bailey, who had renamed it for his wife “Sweet Lorraine.” It’s two floors, swimming pool and drive-up access was a favorite of African American leaders, from Aretha Franklin, Ethel Waters, Otis Redding, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, and so many more spent a night there when they came to Memphis. It is now a spectacular museum on Mulberry Street.
The night before, Dr. King was at Mason Temple and delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. He knew he was a target for white extremist - and that although he would like to live longer, and do more to bring the racial issue to the forefront, he knew he had seen the mountain top, yes, God had given him that, and he was able to look over and see the promised land, just as Moses had been allowed to do. He doubted he’d be able to step foot in it. But his people, his followers would, in the memory of his own name.
It must have been the same for Moses, who wandered with his rowdy and not very obedient nor appreciative people for 40 years trying to prepare them for their promised land, their new home in Canaan, and, yet, that which was promised by God to Abraham and his descendants, Moses was only able to see from a distance, from Mt. Nebo in Jordan, just above the Jordan River which continues to provide so much life to those who lived around it. God said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said I will give it to your descendants, I have let you see it but you will not cross over into it.” And Moses, the Lord’s servant, whether he was pleased or distraught, died there and was buried in Moab in the valley opposite Beth Peor. No one has ever found his grave, although some claimed he disappeared into the sky at age 120. (I would hope so.)
Now, like Dr. King, wanting to do God’s will on this effort, to be a pilgrim in the Holy Land, I, who was born in this violent but amazing city called Memphis, have seen with my eyes, from hazy Mr. Nebo in Jordan, the Promised Land. And I have seen with my eyes Canaan that once was home for God’s wandering people. The view is spectacular, and it is awesome that Moses probably stood in nearly the same area where I stepped when God allowed him to get a glimpse of the land that would soon be home for his people. I said a thanksgiving prayer in honor not only of Moses, but of Dr. King, because some of the things we spend our lives fighting for, we often are only allowed to see the hope, but not to experience the victory. Dr. King felt the pull and the disappointment that he would never see the Promised Land and his assassination put a stop to his seeing but not ending his dream for his people. The battle continued all over the United States, thank God. And the fight is still going on, although things seem to be getting better in our special city of Memphis where too much happened, but had to happen to wake up the people not paying attention. God wants all mankind to get along and worship Him side by side. Finally so many of our leaders today are African-Americans, which reflects that 65 per cent of that population in our city. And the respect is spreading all over the United States and in many parts of the world.
Jordan has a history that connected to many civilizations from the Stone Ages when agriculture was seeded and animals domesticated, when writing was invented and metals became the do or die, the win or lose factor. City states and fortifications accompanied the rise of leaders of groups, similar to the developing Egyptian Dynasties. It was Abraham’s time. It was Moses’ time and the Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab and Edom arose at the same time that the northern kingdom of Israel (Saul, David, Solomon) and Judea, the southern kingdom burst into flower. These kingdoms were crushed by Assyrians and Babylonians and by the Persians and the Greeks (Alexander the Great). It was hot property, so to speak, because of its location and the Arab Nabataeans appeared and built Petra and held on to Jordan with force. They held sway until the Christian Byzantines took control. After 636 AD. on and off during the Crusades, the Islamic Period arrived and it is still the heart of Jordan. Sometimes its doors are not open to foreigners anxious to visit the holy places.
The Jordan river “baptismal fonts”, so to speak, do face each other. The one on Israel side is a modern glass and white stone extravaganza. The one on Jordan’s side in Bethany is simple, not ostentatious, just a long series of white stone steps which give the pilgrim a more tranquil and spiritual journey to touch the holy water of the river. It secures one’s awareness that you are in a place of great history and the water still flows, and the banks still flood each year, and penitents in white still jump in for self-made baptisms or maybe one guided by a priest or deacon. Neither is oblivious of the obvious. Both are big parts of our religious history and hope.
But in his day, Joshua and the Israelites crossed the Jordan in the area of Bethany, and Elijah ascended to heaven in a whirlwind, first crossing the River Jordan to the east bank where a chariot pulled by horses of fire took him to a point from which he disappeared on the east side of Wadi Al Kharrar or Tal Elia. This part of Jordan, from Amman to Petra, holds close to its heart much of the history of the Old and New Testament as well as Moses ending, though one doesn’t know where he was buried (so far), as where Aaron to John the Baptist, and now historians believe Jesus was baptized on the Jordan side of the river, which one can visit and almost shake hands with those dipping in the water on the Israeli side.
We cannot all see the Promised Land from where we stand or end our lives. But we can believe it is there and no matter where we are or how our final moments might be, we must trust the Great God will get us to where we need to be somehow, with all that we need to stand before Him and be embraced in our final homes. Never give up.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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