Exactly a week after the celebration of Jesus the Christ’s overwhelming victory over sin and death, another kind of celebration broke out among the people of the United States. When President Obama issued the official announcement that the country’s number one enemy was finally found and killed, the news spread like wildfire and many people went to the streets to applaud the achievement.
As I watched the video clips that Sunday evening, especially of the jubilant crowds in Ground Zero and around the White House, I realized that somehow I was not feeling the same kind of elation that my fellow US citizens were expressing. This was reinforced by the words of a husband who lost his wife and unborn child in the plane that crashed in Philadelphia. Somehow he too did not feel the urge to “party” at the news of the death of the one who planned the terrorist act of 9/11. And when the news coverage of anything related to that incident continued throughout the following week (even now, as I write, it continues), I sought to understand what I was feeling.
Then I came across an article that helped to articulate what was going on inside me. The article raised the important question, “Should Christians Celebrate the Death of Osama bin Laden?” and was written by Jonathan Merritt in www.relevantmagazine.com. I pass on the concluding words of the article:
And when justice is served to those who wish only to harm others—as it was last night—we may perhaps express relief. Relief in knowing innocent people woke up to a safer world this morning. But relief … not celebration. God loves those innocents, and I believe He desires to see them free from fear and violence. Yet even as our spirits lift knowing that this man will do no more evil, our eyes should burst forth with weeping knowing that bin Laden will likely spend eternity like he spent his life: separated from the true God.
I am well aware that there will be those who will question the position expressed here. Yet the words “relief … not celebration” do offer a succinct articulation of my inner ponderings. The prophet Ezekiel revealed the heart of God when he declared: “As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live” (Ezekiel 33.11 NLT).
One can only look forward to the time when all forms of destructive interaction amongst human beings will finally cease. Come, Lord Jesus!
—Keith Y. Jainga