osama

Such a wise word on current events:

Mourning the Death of Osama Bin Laden

May 3, 2011 

Joshua Tenney, Park Community Church

In response to Osama Bin Laden’s death, Pastor Jackson Crum tweeted:

Osama, a criminal, was caught, but that doesn’t mean I celebrate his death. Shouldn’t I mourn over a life lived apart from the God of the Bible? -@jaxnc

This is a good question for followers of Christ to wrestle through. While it is no easy thing to navigate the emotions that arise from this news, we must think through how the Christian should respond. Some have responded with profound thankfulness and gratitude that justice has been served. Some have celebrated that a dangerous mass murderer has been eliminated. While others have been disinterested and unmoved, Crum is suggesting we mourn over a person who has met his end potentially apart from the gospel.
Our response is important because it demonstrates to the world around us who we believe our God is. It communicates what we believe to be true about this life and how we are to live as resident aliens. It’s an opportunity for the church to bring compassion and speak truth in a violent world.
Consider Matthew 5.13 where Jesus says:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

In this passage, Jesus speaks to the office of every Christian – to salt the earth. Apart from Christ, all that we have within us is tasteless until we have been seasoned with the salt of the gospel of Jesus. Salt preserves and seasons. Commenting on Matthew 5, the Puritan theologian John Owen said,

Salt does not mock rotting meat, it saves and seasons where it is able; and where it is not able it weeps.

Salt does not look at rotting meat and laugh or joke at it’s saltless state. Salt mourns and weeps.
This seems to be what Crum is saying. The Christian weeps over the unrepentant and mourns the death of the wicked because the Christian knows salvation is of God and not our own doing. The Christian knows that nothing separates us from a mass murderer save the grace of God in the heart and mind of a person. We cannot boast that we have chosen a particularly better path than the terrorist and therefore mock or celebrate their ruin. Such a response indicates not only our lack of self awareness as sinful beings, but also our failure to comprehend the gospel and inability to see the world and its wars through the viewpoint of the cross.
The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1). The gospel changes us and transforms our motivations and choices. There is no boasting save in the cross of Jesus Christ. Any attempt at celebrating a death only demonstrates our profound misunderstanding of the gospel that gives life and grace to undeserving sinners.
Our response as salt and as light is mourning and weeping over a life lived apart from the God of the Bible.