osama's death: joy or sorrow (a decision)

on september 11, 2001, i was a college freshman at rutgers university. i was writing a paper for most of the day. this was before the advent of social media, so i wasn't aware of the terror taking place  45 minutes north of me. however, i did notice when people saw planes flying overhead and ducked, concerned about what could happen next.


terror fell out of the sky. people were killed that day. life would never the same.


sunday night, 5/1/2011, osama bin laden was killed in a military attack. ten years later, the man deemed responsible for the 9/11 attack was dead.


but was this justice?


numerous thoughts ran through my head. as you may or may not know, i'm a fan of theme songs. theme songs tend to be the soundtrack of my life. so the first thought to pop in my head was "ding dong the witch is dead." and that's fair, right? i mean, osama was the equivalent to the boogeyman! he was the antecedent to antoine dodson, as the news reports about osama caused us to "hide our kids!" because, at any moment, osama would jump through ours windows and start snatchin' all our people up.


so it's good that he's dead, right?


then, other feelings began to surface. i remembered osama's humanity. he was loved. he hurt. he bled. he had family. as a christian, should i celebrate this man's death?


and then the other issues came up that i saw other christians discuss. it appeared that they were thinking as well, but it was in a different way. thoughts of the old testament rang in one ear, and the love of Christ beckoned in another. do we laud the victory of the warrior god yahweh, or allow of the love of christ to make us mourn even this death? vengeance belongs to god, right? was this god getting revenge on a idol worshipping killer that murdered so many christians?


**as if everyone in the towers was a believer, and as if every muslim is a killer** -___-


i came to the conclusion that i shouldn't be happy that osama is dead. he did awful things, and personally, i would have preferred for him to stand trial. but i just can't glory in death, even of someone who many of us would consider to be wicked.


and here's why...


"Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’" Ezekiel 33:11


Jesus is all about life. he has so much of it that he just wants to give it away, and he consistently gives it to folks that we would never give it to. 


i don't think that god is pleased with osama's death. and i say that with the understanding that there are folks who lost loved ones on 9/11. i don't say this to diminish the reliving of the pain from that day or to judge the joy they may feel from osama's death. if i had a loved one that was killed in all of that mess i just might feel a bit differently at the moment.


but i hope that in the end...i would come back to ezekiel 33:11.