Juan Romero passed away last Monday, October 1, 2018, at the age of 68.  You may or may not remember him.  He was best known for something he did that was captured in photographs just after midnight on June 5, 1968, when he was 17-years-old.

Romero was working as a busboy at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard near Koreatown in Los Angeles, California.  Presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, was staying at the Ambassador.  Romero had met RFK the night before when he ordered room service.  Romero once told newspaper columnist Steve Lopez that “he felt honored by the way Kennedy shook his hand firmly and looked him in the eye with respect.”

On June 4, 1968, Kennedy won California’s Democratic primary and made a victory speech just after midnight at the Ambassador.  After his speech, RFK retreated through the kitchen pantry area.  Romero pushed through the crowd to congratulate him.  As he shook RFK’s hand, shots were fired.  Romero at first thought the pops were from firecrackers, but as Kennedy fell to the ground and Romero saw his blood, he realized that he had been shot.  The gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, was quickly apprehended.  As Kennedy lay mortally wounded, Juan Romero knelt by his side and cradled his head.  Those moments were photographed.  Photos reveal the confusion and despair in Romero’s face.  Romero was troubled by those moments for the rest of his life.

Former California First Lady Maria Shriver, a niece of RFK, told Steve Lopez that she had never met Romero but she hoped he came to realize he did the humane thing in a tragic moment.  “God bless him,” Shriver said. “It’s kind of hard to know why someone gets put into a situation that they’re locked in forever. But as I see it, he was locked into an image of helping someone.”*

When we were “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1-3), Jesus came to us.  He did for us what Romero could not do for RFK.  Jesus gave His life for our sins so that we might have salvation and receive the gift of eternal life.

The Apostle Paul described what God had done for those who have received His grace:  “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).

That same saving and life-giving grace is available to you and to me.  God will extend His saving grace to those who will place their faith and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from their sins in repentance (Acts 17:30-31), confess Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are baptized (immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38).  His grace, through the blood of Jesus, will continue to cleanse those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7-9).

The photographs of Juan Romero cradling the head of the mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy are images of compassion.  May these images point us to the ultimate image of compassion: the cross of Jesus Christ, for Jesus died on the cross so that we may live with Him forever.

Won’t YOU accept His loving offer of grace and eternal life on His terms?

-- David A. Sargent

* Information gleaned from “The busboy who tried to help a wounded Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 dies. His life was haunted by the violence” by Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times, www.latimes.com, October 3, 2018.

David A. Sargent, Minister

Church of Christ at Creekwood 
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama  36695

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