They're killing our kids

He was eight years old, a good age to be. A proper age. He probably was counting the days till Iron Man 3 would come calling at his local theater.  Or maybe he was a miniature Trekkie, and maybe director J.J. Abrams has made him into an eight-year-old modern Star Trek fan, and he was holding out for the later arriving movie.

As they say, time was on his side. He was eight, the age that is just about as good as it gets, the age that wears well, when simmering body pain is still decades away. Worries? None to speak of. Responsibilities? None to worry about.

He was old enough for coach-pitch baseball, but not old enough to have to catch up to some kid pitching to him. Like those who remember a better, more innocent time when "organized" baseball simply meant throwing in your own backyard with a friend, it was hard to find Martin without a mitt and a ball on the weekends. Eight is such a proper age, a time when fun still exists and love isn't embarrassing, even love for a sister.

He was old enough to get some sweet memories out of visiting museums with classmates, but not too old as to have become bored by it all. He was young enough to storm the family automobile for enjoyable trips with the family, but old enough to slip away into alone-time on some of those trips. He was eight, and he was standing at the finish line waiting for his father on a cloudy Bostonian afternoon when life exploded and chaos trumped laughter. He was eight and a lifetime was waiting for him not to finish but to begin.

In the scriptures, constantly, consistently, Jesus says to all of us perpetual eight-year-olds, "Rome is burning. Drop your fiddle, and come to me." Those who are old enough can still come running, having been washed clean by water that is cool and living and never runs dry. Those who are already too old or too jaded to jimmy the locks that have trapped freedom and abundant living, dare not run at all. Even crawling has become a chore to those who are so fearful of terrorists on every corner who steal our joy at bomb-point.

He was eight, a right proper age, the age he will stay ... forever.

The Bible says there was a day like Monday morning, perhaps all cloudy and unseasonably chilly but filled with fine promise like a meal being cooked over a charcoal fire by some great lake, when the people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. Nothing on the side of the miraculous. Just a bit of loving touch, like God's walking with Adam and Eve on a perfect Garden kind of afternoon.

The disciples that day didn't understand. The Spirit had not come to them, enlightening them, teaching them, gooseing them gently. Since the Messiah was theirs and theirs alone, they did what all religious folks do, they shooed the kids away. But Jesus was irate and let the disciples know it: “Don’t push these children away," he said. "Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them."

Author Brennan Manning points out that Jesus could have done a mass blessing, taking care of the children in one swoop with no touch at all. Instead, he picked them up, one by one, carefully, meaningfully, talking to them by name, blessing each AND EVERY ONE. Some were probably eight. Some younger. Some older.

I suspect, with evidence sprouting like the harvest Jesus describes, that our Lord still picks up kids, one by one, one on one, carefully, meaningfully, lovingly as only the creator can. Even as debris flew Monday, those injured in an attack that turned the finish line area into something that  looked an awful lot like a war zone in the Middle East, helped those injured worst than themselves. Believers or not, that's Jesus in disguise.

Of the 150 plus persons harmed by flying debris and glass, 10 or more were children. CHILDREN. Someone chose to pick on children, unarmed, unprotected children. Children who were simply happy to have a moment out of school for Patriots Day, the third Monday in April, in Boston. Children who were watching older siblings or parents working their way round 26 miles of Boston streets. Children playing in the huge crowd that still existed up to three hours past when the initial winners of the marathon crossed the finish line.

Children. Loved by their Abba furiously, wonderfully, unconditionally. Children in harm's way.

And one of those died.

His name was Martin Richard. His family, from Dorchester, Mass. was fairly well known in the area. Loved to ride his bike, and like many Bostonians, he loved baseball -- playing and following those Red Sox, who had finished an early baseball game yesterday before hell ascended into the City on a Hill. His front-tooth-missing smile was a common site in his neighborhood as he often played with his younger sister or some of his many friends. He, his mom and sister were near the finish line when the first bomb exploded, injuring his mom and sister badly and killing Martin.

He was one of three who have died because some unimaginably idiotic and/or evil person or persons decided they would kill people at the end of the Boston Marathon. When the bombs blew, this little eight-year-old died, and another chunk of American innocence was destroyed.

Jesus loves the little children, the hymn tells us. One by one, He blesses them. One by one evil takes them from us. I didn't sleep a bit last night, thinking about this eight-year-old throughout the dark night. Jesus, lover of us all, stands at the edge of Martin's tomb, weeps mournfully, deeply, and this tomb isn't giving up its occupant. The sweet by and by gingerly awaits us, but today, well, today we're weeping with Him because they're killing our kids, and something, anything at all, must change.