I woke up Monday morning and was still feeling a bit groggy when my wife exclaimed “Woah, Osama bin Laden is dead”. I was not quite sure how to respond. Was this confirmed news or just a rumor? How did it happen? How was I supposed to feel?
As I listened to news coverage throughout the day, I realized that many others were trying to process this event too, and that it was going to be a very different experience for different people. The more time I spend talking to people the more I realize that we actually live out our interpretations of big events in the thousand little moments that trail along behind them. Our daily choices tell a clear story about what we think is really important, and what we see God doing (or not doing) in each chapter. So I wonder, where is your attention being drawn by the death of Bin Laden?
Perhaps you are traveling or living abroad right now and have been struggling with life in a place that never quite feels like home. With the death of Bin Laden, the experts all agree that the chance of a reprisal attack on Americans overseas has gone up. Now you are also worried for your safety with the vague, ever-present fear of a terrorist attack that could come anywhere at any time. Getting on a metro or a bus, or going to the market looms with potential menace. Today you have a chance to remember again that your safety lies in the hands of the Good Shepherd. Every step outside your house, every suspicious shadow, is a little opportunity for you to breathe a prayer of trust and supplication to Him. This heightened anxiety will actually be an opportunity to rely more directly on your Protector. So pray for him to guard you physically, but pray too for a heart that rests more deeply in him, knowing that even if you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flames will not consume you (Isa. 43:2).
Perhaps someone you love died on that day in September, nearly 10 years ago. Maybe for you, hearing Bin Laden was dead brought a moment of relief and closure in your grief after a decade of longing. But that sense of relief proved fleeting, and now the loss of that person feels all the more final—nothing (not even this) can bring her back. Here is where God meets you today: we have an unshakable hope in what is coming. It has rarely been more clear for you than right now that you need something bigger than a political solution, something more final and more powerful than merely human justice. You were not meant to find lasting peace in the death of this criminal. Let the grief that resurfaces and the hollowness of this closure draw your eyes toward a larger hope, the hope of resurrection and the end of grief forever.
Perhaps you were like me: surprised to wake up and find out Osama bin Laden had been killed because you had functionally forgotten he existed. Maybe you did not feel much at all. Maybe you sensed a vague guilt for being glad someone had been killed; Christians are not supposed to want people to die, right? You wondered if Osama bin Laden being dead really matters all that much. After all, beyond a longer line at airport security, 9/11 did not really touch your life.
My guess is that, for the vast majority of us, Bin Laden’s death is an important reminder, and one we could easily overlook: there really is justice and it really does matter. Or to put it another way, “God cares deeply about how we live”. A day is coming when God will once and for all deal with every sin and every sinner, and it will not be a rote, yawning justice where God looks up a list of bad deeds in a dusty old tome to remind himself why he should punish our offenses. It will be the hot and immediate justice of the Father and Creator whose treasures we have violated and vandalized. We may have let the passage of time dull our appetite for seeing wickedness dealt with, and numb us to evils like what Bin Laden unleashed. A day is coming though, when everyone will see God’s justice and will know beyond a doubt that it is perfectly fitting, that it is what we have been waiting for (whether in hope or fear!)
Do you live with a sense that real justice is what you and those around you deserve for sin? When you hear the word “grace”, does it evoke a sense of anguish at the sin in your own heart and shock that you have been chosen, loved, and embraced with divine tears of joy instead of being hunted down, shot and thrown into the sea? To call yourself a Christian is to say that you are naturally more like Osama bin Laden than you are like Jesus. Yet this only serves to underline the incredible love of God for those who have trusted in him! The little pictures of justice we get in this world are signposts of God’s passion for righting wrongs and caring for the wounded. They are reminders that God remembers even when we forget. Seeing Bin Laden brought to justice gives us a chance to refocus. What really matters: is it loving God who has shown us such mercy, or being comfortable and hoping that great evils never touch us?
Wherever you find yourself today, the death of Bin Laden highlights something in your story. What might God want you to see?
Alasdair Groves is the Director of Counseling at CCEF New England.
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© 2011, Matt. All rights reserved.
