August 14, 1990

On August 14, 1990, an 18 year old boy from a small town in north Texas was feeling especially anxious. He had flown from Dallas to San Diego, CA late the night of August 13, and was now in a room in the middle of the night with hundreds of people he did not know, being screamed at by people he did know, and was trying to hide and be anonymous. This was impossible though. In his hand was a combination lock. He had literally never used one in his life and because of the stress of the situation he was in, his brain was not cooperating. He had to ask a stranger next to him how to make the lock work and hope none of the drill instructors in the room caught on. He got lucky that time. It didn’t last…

Jesus wept.

When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept with compassion, because Lazarus’ death had caused so much grief – including Jesus’ own. He wept even though he knew that he was about to perform a miracle by raising Lazarus from the dead. Despite the impending miracle, he still felt compassion for Lazarus’ family and community, and it made him weep. (John 11:35)

Jesus wept.

That 18 year old boy was a sensitive kid whose favorite story book as a child had been The Story of Ferdinand, a story about a bull who preferred smelling flowers over chasing matadors. He had left a toxic family situation driven by an abusive mother because he felt that the Marines offered him his best chance at “three hots and a cot” – that is, three meals daily and a place to sleep.

Jesus wept.

That sensitive kid was a good basketball player whose self confidence was low because of the self esteem robbing trauma of abuse, “conditional love”, and a general lack of healthy, positive, family relationships. He was a creative kid who liked to act in the school plays each year and had earned a drama scholarship to a local community college, but chose the Marines over studying theater at school because he lacked confidence and was anxious about being on his own.

Jesus wept.

The Marines wanted to to turn that boy into a killer. The Marines taught him brutal hand-to-hand combat techniques, trained him to “locate, close with, and destroy my enemies,” and to “put a bullet into a flea’s ass” from hundreds of yards away. That’s what Marines do. They kill for empire.

Jesus wept.

That scared, anxious kid became a Marine. One day in 1993, while on a training exercise, that young Marine was severely injured in an accident that left him with PTSD, and robbed him of a chance to fulfill his dream of playing college basketball – a game he was so good at and loved so much. A game he was finally starting to play with the confidence to match is innate ability.

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept because that boy’s upbringing, including his Christian upbringing, had been so harsh and so often devoid of either love or Jesus’ good news. He wept because his teachings had been so perverted and ignored by American Christians, that a Christian kid would even consider becoming a Marine instead of following the way of peace, the way of the kingdom.

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept with compassion because a sensitive kid had to be trained to kill, because he felt like he had no other choice. Jesus wept because that boy became part of America’s state sponsored terrorism and all the hatred, bigotry, and militarism that entails. Jesus wept because instead of being allowed to, and supported in, becoming a man on his own terms, that kid was forced into a patriarchal, militaristic, shell of who he actually was. He wept because all of that trauma would take years to work through, undo, and heal from. He wept with compassion.

Jesus wept for me.

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