Ask me if I am glad that Osama Bin Laden is dead and I will say yes. If you ask me if I am pleased that his death is a wonderful symbol of justice triumphing over wrong, I will say yes. If you ask me if I think Bin Laden was a man in did incredible evil in the world, again I say yes. I am glad he is dead, do I celebrate it? I’m not so sure about that. I prefer to celebrate life especially the abundant life Jesus offered and offers of which I think Bin Laden was almost totally ignorant.
I also think a lot of you are not going to like or agree with what I am going on to say.
Now to get to what I really want to talk about. Do you believe the Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper, serial killers, Attila the Hun, Osama Bin Laden and folk of similar ilk, meaning those whose lives exhibited extraordinary evil can and do receive redemption? Do I believe God condemns the evil that men such as these? That part is easier, yes.
Now if such judgments were left up to human beings I have no doubt that they would be damned for all eternity, cut off from God and from humanity. But we are not God. God’s ways are not our ways and God’s ways continue to amaze me. God’s amazing love for people, including people like me continues to amaze me. And, I believe God loves me, forgives my sins, and redeems me and gives me an eternal life of abundance. I believe the same is true for Osama Bin Laden and all those I mentioned before; it’s is just a matter of degree.
We people just seem so limited in our ability to forgive. I know I carry grudges on and on which does me absolutely no good and absolutely does no injury to the one I’m pissed at; it’s just my nature. But God forgives and forgives on a scale that we can scarcely understand.
This inability of ours is why we find the prodigal son story so hard to swallow. Most of us see ourselves as the righteous, good dudes, faithful older son or daughters; but we’re not; we are the prodigals. And all human beings are the prodigals from Mother Theresa to Osama Bin Laden. Again, it is just a matter of degree.
As for celebration, I celebrate that Osama Bin Laden, a child of God, is now in God’s presence, and can experience God’s forgiving love and experience redemption. I think he will have a hard time making that transition, but I believe it will happen. I believe that is what the scripture says, that Jesus the Christ is the redeemer of the world, all of it.
These are always hard subjects because our ideas about justice in this world often conflict with concepts of redemption in the next. Many, even most, would make exception from redemption against mass-murderers. And yet, even Paul before his conversion was responsible for the death and persecution of Christians - and yet half the New Testament is written by him. Of course having taken up the banner of his victims his story is one of redemption in this world as much as in the next.
ReplyDeleteWhat does it all mean? Not exactly sure, always more questions than answers. I suppose ultimately on some level one simply has to trust in the way things are organized.
For me more the crux of it is our innate evil (total depravity in John Calvin’s words) that all of us are capable of atrocious things. I don’t believe in Dante’s rings of hell or heavenly levels. Redemption may even lead us away from the core issue which I believe is mercy. It is really what we seek from God’s hands (and from others) rather than justice which we neither earn, merit or lose my what we do. If there is redemption I do believe we can earn it nor can we lose it, it is just a merciful act of a loving God.
ReplyDeleteI am really enjoying your thoughtful comments; they make me think and expand my horizons. Thanks.