The eCrozier

“I’m just glad he’s dead,” God forgive me, was my first thought when I heard Osama bin Laden had been killed. I’m not proud of that thought or the feelings that led to it. And I shouldn’t be. Quite the contrary, Jesus expects more of me than that. If you had similar thoughts and feelings, then I hope you will join me in such higher expectations. The sporadic and spontaneous celebrations that popped up in various places in our country following the news of bin Laden’s death have left me sad and numb.

I’ve had similar feelings that led to such thoughts in the past. I’ve sat with a family of a murdered relative after they were informed that the murderer had been executed. I heard the family members say the same thing: “I’m just glad he’s dead.” But it didn’t end their grief or bring them what we like to call “closure.” My empathy and compassion for that family temporarily gave me the rationale to justify and share such feelings and thoughts. But such justifications never last long. The sadness and the numbness soon arrive. My conscience and faith will not allow it otherwise.

I will not grieve over bin Laden’s death, per se, any more than I grieved over the death of that murderer. But that does not mean that can I bring myself to celebrate it or find any joy in it. I worry about our moral center when we find joy or cause for celebration in anyone’s death. Such violent deaths diminish us all. And the more of them, the more we become desensitized to the next one. Left to our own devices, revenge consumes our souls. Yes, we might say that justice was served. We might also contend that bin Laden got what he deserved. After all, the moral theological principle of “just deserts” has been with us a long time.

There’s a scene in Clint Eastwood’s film, Unforgiven, that powerfully questions this principle. Clint plays a retired gunslinger who comes back for one more job. He’s hired to avenge the brutal face-slashing of a prostitute by two young, drunk cowboys. A young, wannabe gunslinger joins Clint to exact revenge. As the scene plays out, the guilty cowboys are gunned down and so are the sheriff and his deputies all who had ignored the crime committed against the prostitute. So all the “guilty” parties got what they deserved, at least by some moral code. Toward the end of the film, the young gunslinger is shaking and nauseated by what he has participated in. Seeking to convince himself he did the right thing, he turns to Clint and says: “well, I guess they done deserved it.” Clint turns to the youngster and says: “we all deserve it, kid, we all deserve it.”

Biblical faith tells us that we all deserve to die for our sins. So we are only talking about degrees here. Yes, bin Laden’s sin was great. My hunch is you and I can always find someone else like bin Laden who deserves it more than we do. But that is simply our human drive to provide self-absolution for our own sins. In our all too human and fallen world, bin Laden “done deserved it.” Yet, this is no occasion for rejoicing any more than our own sin is an occasion for rejoicing. In the end, all any of us can do is beg God for mercy through the merits and mediation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

+Scott