I Celebrate No One's Death!

The day after Osama was killed, I received an email from my sister-in-law in which she asked a pointed question: "Is bin Laden's death 'justice' in your peace-and-justice world?"  I emailed her and asked her if I could use her question as the lead for this commentary and she graciously said yes.  Here was my response with some additional comments.

"Justice has been done", so we hear.  In ways, yes.  Justice demands accountability to the common good.  God creates us to be part of the same family of God. Being part of the same family of God makes us accountable to each other, that we are not simply a bunch of Ayn Rand types individually doing our own things at another's expense regardless of the common good.  No one is exempt, from Hitler to Osama to Christians to Muslims to them to us to me.  In the proclamation of Komarovsky in "Dr. Zhivago": "We're all made of the same clay you know!"  We are all broken, some the same bones, some others.  We are all called before the justice bar of God's and the world's courts to be given life's verdict.  One newspaper headlined Osama's death: "Rot in Hell!"  Then there are Jesus' words to the thief on the cross: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise".   I celebrate no one's death.

Osama's death insured his accountability to the common good.  No one is accountable only to themselves.  Osama had broken the trust and sanctity of the common good.  Justice demands accountability to the common good.  However, justice and killing are not necessarily wedded. I celebrate that Osama was held accountable.  Yet, I celebrate no one's death.

How then is justice administered?  In Romans 13:4, Paul writes that the government is God's instrument of justice: "It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." The purpose of justice is to maintain order.  When order is disturbed, the wrath of justice is brought down.  However, this does not mean that governments have a blank check to do whatever and however and whenever it pleases.  Justice must flow out of love for the sake of love.  In short, the main ingredient of justice is love.  It is important to recognize that Paul's Chapter 13 is bookended by the call to love.  Indeed, the Old Testament meaning of love is justice.  Likewise, when the New Testament speaks of love it means justice.  Justice is love and love is justice.  Justice administered by governments is to be tempered with love.  Love does not instigate death.  Hence, I celebrate no one's death.

How then do we administer justice with love?  The message of the Gospel is nonviolence.  Jesus' justice is a gentle justice, a justice tempered by mercy.  Jesus took death upon himself as the expression of God's mercy for the world.  In the case of Osama, it was right to call him to account, but to exact justice with mercy.  This means the first goal should have been to  try and capture him alive and bring him to the United States for trial. Second, he should have been given the full protection of the law guaranteed within our Constitution.  Third, if and when found guilty, lock him up for good.  No capital punishment.  Jesus put an end to the ethic of "an eye for an eye".  Whether we want to admit it or not, Osama was also created in the Image of God, which tragically he bastardized.  Yet, all of God's people deserve mercy.  God's ways are not necessarily the world's ways.  Hearts can change, repentance happens. I celebrate no one's death.

I have been bothered by the celebrations of Osama's death.  I ask, is this what we have become?  Is this who we are? We dance at death?  Shouts of "USA!  USA! USA!" provide the dancers' cadence.  The bloodlust of revenge drips from our polluted souls.  Osama's death is our catharsis.  Furthermore, we celebrate the skill of the "Kill Team", "our nation's finest."  We elevate them to near deity status.  They have executed American justice by their "terrible swift sword".  We trained them well and they performed their duty well.  They were obedient, courageous patriots.  Yet, I recall Churchill's warning: "Those who have sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind."  Yes, Osama sowed the wind on 9/11 and he has reaped the whirlwind.  Now, do we reap the same whirlwind?  Are we dancing to our own funeral?  Violence begets violence.  I celebrate no one's death.

We can ask: Does death move us forward?  Is there a positive in death?  Certainly.  The defeat of a vicious enemy, the passing of one whose life has been wracked by pain and disease, the exiting of an unjust political force, all may release us from past barriers to love and justice.  But celebrate these passings, no.  The pain has been too great, the sufferings too deep, the memories too vivid to make us dance on their graves.  I celebrate no one's death.

The Christian faithful recently celebrated Easter!  Easter reminds us that death is not to be celebrated, but life is a gift to be lived in faith, love, and justice.  The grace within Jesus' death and resurrection is Christ taking death upon himself to give us all a new heaven and a new earth, when there will be no more dying, no more crying, and pain will be no more, when God is making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-5)  If we dance, let us dance at the resurrection!

Jesus' justice is life!   Jesus does not celebrate death.

Peace!
Ron