Romero, MLK, Bonhoeffer, April 1, 2026, Wednesday in Holy Week, 12-step Eucharist. Romero (March 24), MLK (April 4), Bonhoeffer (April 9), Hebrews 12:1-3
“Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, …let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”
Tonight, as we journey through Holy Week with Jesus at this 12-step Eucharist, we also honor three contemporary Lenten martyrs who also walked the Holy Week journey with Jesus: Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Interesting, isn’t it, that Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, three of the most well-known 20th- century Christian martyrs, die during Lent. Archbishop Romero is shot on March 24 at age 62 at the altar in El Salvador while celebrating the Eucharist/ after speaking out against the brutality of the ruling government,/ Martin Luther King is shot on April 4 at age 39 in Memphis where he goes to support striking sanitation workers,/ and Bonhoeffer is hung on April 9 also at age 39 for participating in plans to assassinate Hitler, dying 23 days before the Nazi surrender. Romero is shot while elevating the chalice at the end of the Eucharistic prayer. When a death squad kills him, his blood spills onto the altar mixed with the blood of Christ in the chalice. All three men are icons for our Lenten and Holy Week journey, people who speak their truth even when they offend the ruling authorities./ This is also what happens to Jesus. Jesus’ message offends the religious rulers of the Temple, who then conspire with the Roman authorities to kill him. Jesus is not killed at age 33 by the Jews/ but by the elite Jewish religious authority that convinces the elite Roman authority to believe that Jesus’ presence impedes keeping the peace in occupied Palestine. ////
Our Lenten journey has centered on “moments of clarity,” dying to an old life, and being reborn like Nicodemus—embracing a new Easter life, learning to be blind and then seeing, understanding what it feels like to have Christ crucified within us, and then living a new resurrected life rooted in the truth about ourselves and those around us.//
Romero, MLK, and Bonhoeffer don’t begin the Lenten journeys of their lives speaking out the truth in love. They were all three quiet, unassuming men: Romero, appointed bishop by the Vatican with the El Salvadoran government’s approval because he seemed “quiet and safe”;/ King, chosen for his youth and because he was the newest and youngest black pastor at age 25 in Montgomery;/ and Bonhoeffer, a thoughtful Lutheran theologian. But during their journeys, all three see the injustices inflicted by those in authority on their friends and neighbors. They die to an old life of silence and living in the darkness of conformity and are reborn into a new life of speaking Christ’s truth in love. Eventually, like Jesus, all three realize they will be killed for speaking out. All their writings suggest that they, like Jesus, ask that the cup pass from them, but it doesn’t./We honor them tonight and pray for just a little of their courage and strength to do “the next right thing,” to speak out against the injustices in our world and support those who are harmed daily within and beyond these walls where we live and work and play and worship.//
“Consider those who endured such hostility… so that we/ may not grow weary/ or lose heart.” Joanna Seibert