On the news of a terrorist's death

News of the death of Osama bin Laden has dominated the headlines since President Obama's address to the nation on Sunday night. Bin Laden's death brings to an end a decade-old, world-wide manhunt begun on September 11, 2001. When he was buried in the Arabian Sea on Sunday, ten years’ worth of unresolved grief was buried with him.

Earlier this week the Vatican issued a statement saying bin Laden's death is cause for reflection, not rejoicing. In my heart of hearts, I know that to be right. We humans are all made in the image of God. To gloat over the death of anyone — even someone as sick and cruel as Osama bin Laden — is to celebrate the death of a child of God.

I cannot imagine God’s celebrating the death of any of his children. Instead I see God's heart breaking much in the way that David's heart broke when his own sick and cruel son Absalom was killed. David's own son had become his enemy. In reading the text it is clear that Absalom cannot be stopped unless he is killed. He will either kill or be killed; there is no other option. Nevertheless, when David learns of his Absalom's death, he weeps for him as a son and not as an enemy. It is not cause for celebration but lament.

"Absalom, Absalom," David cries. Surely this is how God must weep at the loss of any one of His children.

And yet, I must confess my own ambivalences, even as I write. I have not mourned for Osama bin Laden. I shall not. I mourn rather for the terror and enmity he wrought upon this world.

I lived in New York in the spring and summer of 2001. It was an idyllic summer spent with one of my best friends -- two boys from West Texas living it up in "The City." We had the world by the tail. When I departed New York to head to seminary I sat on the tarmac and wrote the following words in my journal: "I can always come back to New York; but I will never come back to right now." I had no idea how true those words would be. A month later two planes would bullet through the Twin Towers. New York would never be the same. Neither would America. Neither would I. Gone with 9-11 was my youth and all the sense of safety, security, and innocence it affords.

But so many people lost so much more on that fateful day. Three thousand plus lives
were lost on that day. And it was their loved ones and their own much deeper and more painful losses that came to mind on Sunday night when President Obama gave his address. I prayed that this news might bring them some sense of solace and closure. The wages of their loved ones' killer was death; he can hurt them no more.

Ultimately, the task of the pastor is to point the way to where God is. In times like these it is difficult to speak with clarity. Whose side is God on? Perhaps that is not really the question. Perhaps the better question is for whom does God's heart break? And the answer, of course, is God's heart breaks for us all. For the families that lost their loved ones on 9-11. For the Navy Seal bravely fighting for freedom halfway around the world. For the pastor groping for words. And yes, even for the terrorist whose evil sins have now found him out.

"Osama, Osama," if you had only known God's love. If you had only known.