Did We Miss Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s Death?

This Sunday, many churchgoers heard the story of two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, shocked by the recent crucifixion. Along their way, they meet a stranger with whom they travel and later share dinner. The disciples tell him what they believe to be the truth of the previous days’ events: A prophetic voice has died.

Flash forward two thousand years, to a time where cars, not sandals, are the primary means of transport, and television, not word of mouth, is the most efficient method of communication. In this fast paced world, the front-page story is the death of a different prophetic voice, a voice that prophesized not love and tolerance but hatred and violence. Many of those who celebrated on Boston Common, outside of the White House, and at Ground Zero—some drunk, others cheering “U.S.A., U.S.A.,” as if rooting for our country at an Olympic final—thought they understood what this death meant: an evil reign ended, hope for America’s safety renewed.

Over dinner, the mysterious man divides a piece of bread, and the disciples suddenly see everything differently: The stranger who traveled beside them was, in fact, the risen Jesus.

So if the disciples missed Jesus’ presence on the Emmaus Road, is it possible that we’re missing Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s death?

I should own at the start that this is an emotionally challenging question for me to consider, even as an Episcopal priest. I come from a New York suburb that suffered more casualties following September 11th than any other in the Tri-State area. For months, funeral cars lined the fronts of churches and synagogues as our community commemorated the dead or missing. Military aircraft flew over my parent’s home, causing plates and wall hangings to shake as if from an earthquake aftershock.

I told my mother, as we drove past that infamous plume of grey smoke, that I thought New York looked tilted without the Twin Towers.

So when I heard about Osama bin Laden’s death, I felt a relief that filled my eyes with tears and brought me to my knees. The ground was flat again. This was a sign of hope. I would go out to Boston Common, jump up and down, share in the carefree revelry.

But then I thought of that gunshot through the head, of children shrieking, of a wife defending her treacherous husband. I thought the smell of the Twin Towers’ smoke and our neighbor who came home with a soot-covered face and the humiliation I feel every time I remove my shoes at airport security and the faith that I argued with and struggled with and found solace in during the weeks after September 11th.

And it is from that faith that I find myself compelled to ask whether we’re missing Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s death.

President Obama called bin Laden’s death an act of “justice,” and yet Obama, a Christian himself, failed to mention that killing is a top ten violation, sandwiched between dishonoring one’s parents and adultery. Was Jesus there?

Several days later, college student Lauren Kolodkin published a commentary on CNN’s Belief Blog, where she wrote that, “The man who murdered thousands of Americans and instigated the war on terror is finally gone. And my generation celebrated.”

Yet the book of Proverbs says, “Don’t laugh when your enemy falls; don’t crow over his collapse.” (24:17)

Still later that week, an MSN poll showed 79% of people thought bin Laden deserved to die, as if those who enact great atrocities merit death while the rest of humanity does not. For the child who dies too young, death is an evil. For the innocent mother who dies at the hands of a drunk driver, death is a horror. But for someone like bin Laden, death is deserved.

And still the Bible says reminds us that we are all dust and to dust we shall return. If we are all to go the way of bin Laden, our only hope can be that we will not perish with the same violence or blood on our hands.

Are we missing Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s death?

Christians learned on Good Friday that Jesus’ heart broke for a broken humanity, so much so that He died on a cross to show that he felt, even embodied the suffering we all experience, and he rose to show that such suffering would not have the last word. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the disciples on the Emmaus Road realized his presence in the breaking of the bread, an act of dividing that ironically unites. In brokenness, Jesus creates wholeness, like Crazy Glue bonding a fractured dinner plate.

But sadly, looking for wholeness doesn’t seem to be the priority, even amongst our youngest citizens. After my CNN comments on bin Laden’s death were released, a reader contacted me with this story from her classroom:

“Today, I couldn’t feel happy when I heard 12 year old kids persist in calling each other cruel names and almost rising to violence during my math class. They literally went back and forth always trying to one-up the other in cruelty. They did not try to resolve anything. They just persisted in perpetuating hate. I tried to talk to them about how hatred doesn’t end hatred. I started to talk to them about how I was a little afraid that we might be retaliated against because we celebrated the death of an individual last night. I almost cried when they said, “But you feel better when you’re mean to someone. Revenge is good.”

Revenge is good.

Justice has been done.

Our generation celebrated.

By glorying in revenge, each of us overlooks the brokenness that created people who hijack airplanes, instigate wars, and ask our nation’s brightest and best to descend from a helicopter—dogs in tow—to murder a man.

So while killing Osama bin Laden may well have been the best of a number of very bad options, while it may have been the only way to hold a very violent man accountable, it is still an act that stems from brokenness, and brokenness can never be celebrated.

There are those four words cupped between the imperative to honor parents and avoid adultery, after all.

But revenge is good.

Justice has been done.

Our generation celebrated.

Have we missed Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s death?

The Emmaus story asks Christians to seek healing for their brokenness in ways they might have overlooked. How might that healing be sought? First, they are asked to gather with unlikely companions, to share a meal or a walk as the disciples did on the Emmaus Road. They are also called to intellectual and emotional humility, to realize that things may not be as they seem. Intellectual humility might involve admitting that there are ways of being and knowing and depths of any conflict that reach beyond even the brightest human mind. Emotional humility, in contrast, might involve searching our hearts for hardness and prejudice and handing those parts to God to soften.

Of course, it is up to our global community and not just the Christian one to work together to create a world less tilted than the one we currently inhabit. But if we’re willing to gather together and humbly consider that things may not be as they seem, then perhaps, like the disciples on the Emmaus Road, we may see reality, and we may see hope, just a little more clearly.

*This blog was based upon a sermon preached on May 8, 2011 at Christ Church, Quincy, MA.

3 thoughts on “Did We Miss Jesus in Osama bin Laden’s Death?”

  1. Thanks for sharing your sermon based post–I too preached on Emmaus and bin Laden (which I posted on SoF) and the parallels between where Jesus is in our walk and how we respond to the murder of someone who created so much evil has clearly touched a nerve in the Christian community–if anything, I appreciate the dialogue it’s created and how the people in my congregation are carefully and deliberately considering the intersection of Christ and bin Laden. You really captured the point of the argument about where is Jesus in all of this. I hope that this type of conversation can continue to lead to a clearer, less tilted world as you suggest. Thanks

  2. As an agnostic and a vehement believer in the philosophy of “Do unto others…” (not because it’s in the Bible but simply because it makes sense), I too am very troubled by the “celebrations that ensued in the wake of the Osama Bin Laden killing. It’s taken me a while to digest the news and its possible effects on our lives. The truth is that the news brought very little emotion within me in terms of its victim. I have neither feelings of hate towards him nor feelings of empathy. It was more like a feeling of dull apathy underscored by bitterness and despair. Apathy at not knowing how to react to such heinous acts not just from him, but from our own government at times, and from terrorists all around the world who use violence to intimidate and manipulate innocent victims. Bitterness at what I saw and lived as a long time New Yorker that day on September 11th. Those images of desperate people jumping to their death and firefighters entering what they knew to be their final rescue will forever be ingrained in my mind, my heart and my soul. I am overwhelmed by the memory of those images and by the aftermath that followed in New York City and in the Middle East. That is where the feeling of despair comes in. How is it that the human race cannot seem to be able to learn from past mistakes? How many Hitlers, Stalins, Mussolinis, Francos, Maos and Pinochets will it take for us to learn to choose our leaders with intelligence? When will we learn to take responsibility for our actions as individuals and collectively as nations? Why are we so frightened by the prospect of admitting an error in judgement and why can we not stop thinking about ONLY ourselves?

    Because of all this the celebrations that ensued from Osama’s killing seemed to me completely out of place, out of touch and grotesque. For me his death represents the possibility and the hope of a new era of peace while sadly acknowledging that the result may very well be the opposite. Regardless, for me none of the diplomatic and military decisions that have been made as a result of September 11th have been cause for celebration. Every one of them has resulted in too many deaths on both sides of the conflict and celebration on either side sickens me.

    I stumbled upon Lauren Kolodkin’s essay on the subject and found her reasoning behind the celebrations to be that of an immature, selfish young lady who sees her generation’s anger and outrage as the validating force behind arrogant, unthinking acts. In her first line she says “For the past ten years my generation has had it pretty bad.” My question is: IN RELATIONSHIP TO What?… Heaven?!!!

    I’m sure the youth of the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the young men being drafted to go to Vietnam in the 60’s and 70’s, the mothers, wives and children loosing their sons, brothers and fathers to WW I, II and Korea, the Jews who fled Nazi Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in order to seek refuge within our borders, the immigrant families who came to this country penniless and in waves for the past two hundred years would BEG to differ. Every generation has had its difficulties and its challenges and NEVER has that made it OK to act out in this manner. To her I say grow up and read your history. You don’t have it half as bad as your grandparents did and they managed to keep it together and conduct themselves with grace and a sense of responsibility. So can we. The death of any enemy out of respect to his victims should bring a chance for reflection, prayer and healing. Instead we saw drunken mobs taunting and screaming obscenities at anyone who looked foreign to them. How is that righteous? Since when do we as Americans stand for that?

    Her last line “We celebrate because we can.” Is even more revolting to me. I drive a big gas guzzling car because I can. I carry a gun because I can. I let the water run and keep the lights on because I can. I do because I can. I can’t find a sense of ethics and moral duty in that statement and for that reason cannot relate to that being the justification for such a strong and questionable message being put forth by those “celebrations”. In 1860 plantation owners in the American South owned slaves because they “could”. Which of course begs the question….Just because they could, did that make it right? It’s not what one CAN do, but what one OUGHT to do that makes a person honorable.

  3. “President Obama called bin Laden’s death an act of “justice,” and yet Obama, a Christian himself, failed to mention that killing is a top ten violation, sandwiched between dishonoring one’s parents and adultery. Was Jesus there?”

    There is so much wrong in this paragraph that I don’t know where to even begin.

    – bin Laden’s death was justice
    – I see zero evidence that Barack Obama is a Christian. A Christian is someone who acknowledges Christ as the way, the truth and the life, and has dedicated their life to follow Him. Obama’s actions do not reflect this.
    – “Killing” is not a top 10 violation. (I assume you mean the Ten Commandments.) The word should be better translated as “murder” – the unjustified taking of innocent life. There’s huge difference between killing and murder. That is why the Bible allows for things like self defense, just war, and the death penalty.

    Why do I need to say this to a priest?

    Justice does not necessarily equal revenge. The death of this man who orchestrated the death of thousands was not revenge. It was justice.

    Again, the fact that I have to say this to a priest is shocking. The moral relativism in the rest of this piece is even more so.

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