Fifty Years Ago

November 22

Please allow me to reflect a moment upon the fact that fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. He was the leader of the free world and when he was slain before the nation's incredulous eyes, people were required to grasp a reality that had been largely hidden away in the remote corridors of their minds, “It is appointed to man once to die…” Hebrews 9:27.

We don’t want to think about death. We don’t want to confront the reality of our own mortality. We want to postpone the big decision about everlasting life and eternity to another season. Those who were young on that long-ago day are now old, and some are still postponing that confrontation with the reality that our time here is brief.

But the words of scripture ring in our ears and we know they’re true, “Now is the accepted time, behold today is the day of salvation,” II Corinthians 6:2. The youngest man who had ever held the office of president did not have the luxury of a priest by his side to encourage him to accept Christ as his Savior before he drew his final breath. The last rites of the Catholic Church were administered after the president had expired.

JFK had defied death before. He’d rescued other seamen in shark-infested water when their PT 109 sunk during WW II. He’d survived life-threatening disease. Who could have imagined he would be undone by an obscure, disgruntled former serviceman who just happened to be in the right place at the right time on that sunny afternoon in Dallas!

Lone gunman? Conspiracy theorists think not; it seemed even the weather conspired against Kennedy that fateful day. Had it not been a beautiful, bright, sunny day, the protective bubble top would have been over the presidential limousine. If Kennedy had not wanted to be more visible to the crowd, secret service men would have been standing protectively on the extended bumper of his vehicle.

They could have done their job of protecting him. Instead of just one of them, Clint Hill, becoming a human shield over him, there would have been several. But the circumstances are what they are. There was no protective bubble. Mr. Hill’s heroic effort failed to enable him to protect a living president but to shield a dead one from the scrutiny of incredulous onlookers.

The veracity of the Word—“NOW is the day of salvation,” and “It is appointed to man once to die,” confronts the living with the only truth that is everlasting, with the reality that life’s only eternal decision is what to do with Christ. Youth fades, wealth is bequeathed to another generation, power is assumed by yet one more politician eager to wield it; but Jesus Christ arose from the dead and reigns forever.

Today, fifty years after the death of a man whose life was suddenly snuffed out, may you, dear reader, make the decision to receive Jesus as your Savior so your life will never end but transition from the sphere of time to the sphere of heaven where you will live and reign forever with Him, II Timothy 2:12.