I will always believe that Hank Aaron is the single most amazing, inspiring and under-appreciated Brave in franchise history. April 8, 2014, will mark the 40th anniversary of the moment that he hit number 715 and broke Babe Ruth’s all-time homerun record. Most everyone has seen the footage, heard the call, or worn the feather. Most do not know what he and his family endured in the days and weeks leading up to that monumental moment. Jack Wilkinson puts the entire situation in proper perspective:

“It wasn’t until Aaron surpassed Ruth, though, that the awful truth eventually came out: the racism he’d endured, the pure hatred and vitriol, the hate mail and death threats aimed squarely at the color of a man’s skin. It began in the 1972 season and built throughout ’73 as Aaron, at age 39, hit 40 homers to finish the year with 713, one shy of Ruth’s record. ‘All I’ve got to do this winter,’ he said at season’s end, ‘is stay alive.'”

“Of course, long before he challenged Ruth, Aaron had encountered racism in baseball. As a teenager, the young infielder from Mobile, Alabama, briefly played for the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. One weekend, their doubleheader in Washington, D.C., at Griffith Stadium – home of the Washington Senators – was rained out. As Aaron recalled in his autobiography I Had a Hammer, written with Lonnie Wheeler: ‘We had breakfast while they were waiting for the rain to stop, and I can still envision sitting with the Clowns in a restaurant behind Griffith Stadium and hearing [restaurant employees] break all the plates in the kitchen after we were finished eating. What a horrible sound. Even as a kid, the irony of it hit me: here we were in the capital in the land of freedom and equality, and they had to destroy the plates that had touched the forks that had been in the mouths of black men. If dogs had eaten off those plates, they’d have washed them.'”

“A quarter-century and untold anguish later, at 9:07 PM on a Monday night, 715 finally took flight. In his second at-bat, when the rain subsided as if on cue, Aaron lined the historic homer into the Braves’ bullpen, into the glove of teammate Tom House. The reliever ran toward home plate and hand-delivered the historic ball to Aaron. His father, Herbert, hugged his son. Then his mother, Estella, finally embraced him. A crowd of 53,775 roared its approval. Henry Aaron could finally exhale and say, ‘Thank God.’

As I begin this entry, I’m well aware that the subject I’ve selected is highly controversial and extremely sensitive. At the same time, I’m also compelled by the calling of God on my life to speak the truth and never shy away from an opportunity to shed light from His Word on situations that affect our daily lives. It is not my intention to use this article to offend or seem insensitive to anyone.

I did not follow the Trayvon Martin case as closely as others, therefore, I’m in no position to comment on the details of that horrible situation. However, living in the southern part of the United States, I’ve seen and heard my share of racial controversies throughout my life. Unfortunately, there have been times that I’ve been ashamed of being white after hearing the ignorance of some manifest through words, seeing that ingnorance through actions or coming to understand the unimaginable belief systems of some who choose to discriminate because of skin color.

Christy and I have come to realize that some of the best friends we have in life are African-American. That fact alone has caused us to scratch our heads in disbelief as we see certain individuals who feel that they are superior in some way, simply because they’re not black. One of the most appalling beliefs we’ve encountered is the belief that interracial marriage is a sin that is frowned upon by God. I’ve certainly disappointed and angered individuals when I’ve shared the fact that a belief system like that is severely unfounded and unsupported by Scripture. What most people miss is that the only prohibition set upon the marriage union is a believer being yoked together with an unbeliever, not a white person marrying a black person.

The Bible says that Moses married an Ethiopian woman from Cush. There is ample evidence to support the theory that his wife was black. Moses’ sister, Miriam, had a problem with this union. Numbers 12:1-6 says, “Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. ‘Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?’ they asked. ‘Hasn’t he also spoken through us?’ And the LORD heard this. (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you.” So the three of them came out. Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, he said, ‘Listen to my words: ‘When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?’ The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them. When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam–leprous, like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; and he said to Moses, ‘Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother’s womb with its flesh half eaten away.’ So Moses cried out to the LORD, ‘O God, please heal her!’ The LORD replied to Moses, ‘If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back.’ So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.

It’s interesting to me that, even after Miriam sought to lead a rebellion against her brother, Moses still interceded for her healing. It just goes to show that some people are filled with hate (Miriam’s racist stance) and some people are filled with love (Moses’ intercessory response on behalf of his sister). It’s been infuriating at times to hear and see the words and actions of so-called “believers” that still harbor hateful racism and discrimination in their hearts. We throw around disrespectful slang terms that are designed to demean and insult while we puff ourselves up with pride somehow thinking that we’ve been graciously elected to journey through life as a superior class. On the flip side, I’ve had numerous African-American friends express their frustration with certain individuals who seek to use the color of their skin to advance in life and seek out opportunities to cry offense. These are two extremes that cause major damage to the peace and unity we seek.

God is not pleased with this type of hatred and learned behavior. Just because Grandpa used that word doesn’t mean you should. Older wisdom doesn’t always represent better. As Christians, we must learn how to accept the differences in skin color with appreciation and respect. Anything short of this is displeasing to the God who created varieties of color in His infinite wisdom.

“On the night of Aaron’s homerun, Vin Scully, the Dodgers’ iconic broadcaster, said this to his Los Angeles audience: ‘Fastball…there’s a high drive to deep left-center field. Buckner goes back to the fence, it is…GONE!’ Scully paused, for one minute, 44 seconds. The only sounds: the cheering of the crowd and fireworks exploding in the night air. Then: ‘What a marvelouse moment for baseball! What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia! What a marvelous moment for the country and the world! A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking the record of an all-time baseball idol.”

Once we get past all these foolish divisions, once we treat people in ways that are based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin, once we learn to look through the eyes of Christ and see everyone as children of God, well, that’ll be a homerun for everyone.