death of osama

Osama Bin Laden is a person that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Let's not sugarcoat that fact.

Now, there are some other things surrounding him and his doings and capabilities that should probably be looked into, but I'll not get into that. I will comment on his death last night.

I watched my timeline fill up with a ton of varying reactions. Most of them were happy. Very happy. Most of them along the lines of, "America! @#%! yeah!"

My concern is that, in that moment, we forgot something that I thought about even as the towers went down on 9/11: Jesus died for this man, too.

Jesus. Died. For. This. Man. Too.

That puts him on the same plane as every other sinner type on earth right now (no pun intended). I am glad that he is not in a place to hurt another person, but I would have been fine with him being detained. His death? It's simply a set of consequences related to his actions, not something to rejoice over or be excited about. Yes, there is closure for families that have lost people trying to find this man. Yes, a major cog has been taken out of a rather large machine. Yes, "justice has been served." But if you are a believer, you should know better than anyone that our cries and desires should be for mercy above all else because if we received perfect justice, we would have been snuffed out before breath one.

The fact is that, no matter what or who he was, he was a sinful man like we are. What he did was bad. Irreparably bad and nothing that I will say will change that rather massive fact, but to celebrate with beers and music and dancing over the death of this man is a bit much for me. As for my part, I quietly acknowledge that a person that did many horrible things is no longer alive to do them and his judgment is now in the hands of God.

That is the only reasonable reaction I could come to considering the excessive amount of grace I require to survive daily life.