U.S. President Barack Obama hosts an Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House April 7, 2015 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America
President Obama paid tribute to an African-American Baptist pastor and civil-rights leader who died Easter Sunday at age 96 in remarks at the White House Easter prayer breakfast April 7.
“This morning, we also remember a man of God who we lost this weekend, a man known and loved by many of you — the dean of American preaching, Dr. Gardner C. Taylor,” Obama said. “
“Anybody who had the privilege of hearing him speak knows what power he had. He was a civil rights hero. He was a friend of Dr. King, who used his spellbinding sermons to spread the gospel and open people’s hearts and minds. He taught and mentored countless young ministers. So as we mourn his absence today, we also take solace knowing that he leaves a living legacy and that he is in a better place.”
“I am no preacher,” Obama said. “I can’t tell anything to this crowd about Easter that you don’t already know. I can offer just a couple of reflections very quickly before we begin the program.”
Obama said “Easter puts our earthly concerns into perspective.”
“With humility and with awe, we give thanks to the extraordinary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Savior,” he said. “We reflect on the brutal pain that he suffered, the scorn that he absorbed, the sins that he bore, this extraordinary gift of salvation that he gave to us. And we try, as best we can, to comprehend the darkness that he endured so that we might receive God’s light.
“And yet, even as we grapple with the sheer enormity of Jesus’s sacrifice, on Easter we can’t lose sight of the fact that the story didn’t end on Friday. The story keeps on going. On Sunday comes the glorious Resurrection of our Savior.”
After his opening remarks, the president introduced Amy Butler, pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, who gave the opening prayer.
“I don’t know,” Butler quipped before inviting the group to pray. “He sounds like a preacher to me.”
Click here for more.
SOURCE: Baptist News Global
Bob Allen
