Remembering Innocents

Last night Second B's sanctuary was the site for a vigil to remember the hundreds of children who were killed by child abuse in 2011. We co-hosted the event in partnership with Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock and about 300 bikers.

Yes, you read that right, bikers - as in motorcycles, bandanas and lots and lots of leather. Interestingly, the biker community has really rallied around the cause of child abuse here in our community. Whenever someone is on trial for child abuse, bikers clad in black leather wearing bandanas and goaties show up in court to watch. The point is clear - if you mess with kids, you mess with bikers also.

Before my invocation, I told those gathered that they didn't look like the usual Sunday crowd here at Second B. They laughed in agreement.

But, I said, it is appropriate that a church be the site for this kind of event. I told them about having just come from Bethlehem, and the church of the Nativity, the place where Jesus was said to be born. Beneath that church there is a cave, which serves as a crypt. And there is buried there in that crypt the bones of the children who were killed by King Herod when he came after baby Jesus and ended up killing all the children two and under in and around Bethlehem.

"Nowhere else in the history books is that event chronicled," I said, "except in the Bible. The people of God remember."

The Church calls that event the Slaughter of the Innocents. Truly all those names which were read and remembered were indeed innocent. And truly we will continue to remember, until the slaughter of innocents ends. Because when you mess with kids, you mess with bikers - and you mess with the Church also.