Everybody dies. Most have not known or will not know when that is to happen. The assurance, however, is there. We will all die. The only way to avoid that is to be alive at the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that will still bring about a rather significant change. Death in and of itself does not therefore hold any particular uniqueness for us. That is, until it takes someone of importance to us.
I must admit there was no great rejoicing in my spirit when I got the word that Osama bin Laden had been killed. My first thought was simply, "Who will be the next world assasin?" In one form or another the bin Ladens have been around since long before we even read of Barabbas, a local Jewish zealot, being traded for Jesus. My emotions reflected my feelings that executionary death removes a symptom of a problem from our midst. It does not remove the problem.
Did Osama bin Laden deserve to die? If you weigh the pain he and his organization have caused millions of people, Americans and non-Americans, Christians and non-Christians, rich and poor alike, it would be hard to find any man in the first decade of the 21st century who deserved it more? If allowed to live in freedom, would he have been searching for additional ways to cause pain to anyone who differed with his agenda? Without a doubt!
I only raise the question that should we as civilized people, as Christians, find in the violent death of any person, no matter how deserving, a reason to celebrate. Let us grieve with those who have lost loved ones due to this man's hatred, bigotry, and twisted mind. Let us work to restore justice in areas where such hatred finds fertile soil. Let us bring love, compassion, and hope for redemption into relationships that would otherwise be attracted to such a perverted view of human existence.
The death of one man such as Osama bin Laden will ultimately be a note on a page in a history book. The millions who died in the Holocaust deserve and will get more space. Those who have died in mass ethnic cleansings deserve and will get more space in those same books. Those millions who died at the will of some passing dictator deserve and should get more space.
One man's death rarely makes a difference in social history. Thankfully, there is one man's death that has. Jesus carried neither spear nor sword. He carried a cross. He preached neither social correctness nor ethnic superiority. He preached love and forgiveness. He sought the death of no one. He sought only salvation for all through his own death.
Dictators die. Jihadists die. Theologians and philosophers die. Their deaths offer no one abundant life now and salvation eternal. One man's death did.
