The stuff of heroes and legends

"Pay attention, son," my father said. "You're watching history."

We took in the images from our Philco black-and-white TV set as a reporter shouted into a microphone, "Get the gun, Rafer!" We kept rapt watch in the days that followed along with millions of other Americans. The scene of a funeral train flickered across our screen, the cortege on rails wound through town after town, journeying inexorably eastward from California. Finally, we saw Ethel in a black veil shepherding her many small children inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

History indeed.

Forty years ago this week, while passing through a kitchen at the now-razed Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a man was assassinated who probably would have been elected president that November. Ever since, the name Robert F. Kennedy has been the stuff of legend. Because he died when he did, RFK is forever 42 years old. For as long as his memory persists, we'll always think of him brushing his longish hair away from his brow and offering up that disarming smile.

Let's face it. A premature demise gets our attention. In a desensitized world, where tragedy spills into our living rooms without surcease thanks to the 24/7 news cycle, dying young always seems to cut through the clutter.

All my heroes died before their time. And none was sick when death came calling. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was 39 when the Nazis hanged the German pastor just days before the Allies liberated his World War II concentration camp. Martin Luther King Jr. was the same age when his life ended on a balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.

Brad Skelton of Gordonville was just a year older when his life was taken during combat operations in Iraq; he had selflessly volunteered to return there after already having pulled a tour.

England's Thomas More was more advanced in age than the aforementioned but still well under average life expectancy when Henry VIII ordered him beheaded for refusing to look the other way. (Rent the movie "A Man for All Seasons" sometime. More's courage and integrity are amazing.)

My biggest hero died earlier than any of these. He wasn't even old enough, at the time of his death, to have been elected U.S. president. The Gospels show him to be completely unconcerned, even contemptuous, of his own safety yet totally obsessed with the salvation of everybody else. When it made sense for him to keep quiet, he spoke the unvarnished truth. When it was in his interests to speak up, he said not a word in his own defense. A unique man who lived a life without sin and exhibited heroism without precedent. This is why this particular hero has the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:9)

He is Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ. He died, which got our attention and saved us from sin. He was raised from death and, well, that commands our awe, our gratitude, our obedience and our worship.

Pay attention, all, you're following a hero. The hero.

Jeff Long is pastor of Centenary United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau. Married with two daughters, he is of Scots and Swedish descent, loves movies and is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.