Today, we will hear a good deal of “faint praise” for fallen Charlie Kirk. It’s the right thing to do. But even with the ink reporting his assassination still drying on the pages of the evening edition, his detractors reflexively rejoiced that he had been eliminated, at least in their minds, but clearly revealed in their body language, though some, even on the house floor, vocalized thoughts that they should have kept to themselves. That is where we are in this society, in the Rome of this day and age.
I happened to have Zimmer’s soundtrack to “The Gladiator” dialed up on my iPhone this morning, which automatically played as I drove in to work. How fitting is this music to reflect the 31 years Charlie spent on this earth. He was victimized in the end by a cowardly “knife to his shoulder,” dooming him to die a martyr’s death. You could only imagine him walking now through the wheat fields to rejoin his wife and children, with the sorrowful but hopeful alto’s voice hauntingly wafting in the fresh air.
Charlie would want it no other way than to be known for having died for Jesus, not for a political cause. This was first and foremost in his mind. His political views aligned with those closest to his religious beliefs. The only person he blindly followed was his Savior.
1 About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church. 2 He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword. 3 When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration.) 4 Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover. 5 But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him. Acts 12:1-5
One thinks of the untimeliness of James’s death, recounted briefly and factually in the book of Acts. He was one of three disciples closest to Jesus, brother of John, and a born leader. His death was a political statement perpetrated openly and unapologetically by the leaders of that day. Yet, the message was not muffled in any way, and those who remained rallied and fought on.
We can only hope that the same occurs among the thousands of youths who heard Charlie’s messages and retorts, who at the time, knowing no better, bitterly disagreed, but now hearing the same message in a new and clearer light, rings as true as the soloist’s voice.
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