Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hurt you.
Pray for those who mistreat you.
These are the words of Christ. Not the words of Christianity or the words of religion. Christ. When Jesus said to love your enemies, who were the enemies that he was referring to? When he said to pray for those who mistreat you, who was he referring to?
In the days following the murder of Osama Bin Laden, I believe it is necessary to stop and reflect on these words. What did the heart of God cry out at the moment of his death? Did he rejoice over the end of a tyrant or did his heart break over the death of his child?
Did the unrighteous actions that Bin Laden committed cause the father to love him any less? If that is the case, than every unrighteous act I commit causes the father to love me less as well. Thank God for his unfailing grace that chases us down when we don’t deserve it.
The Bible is clear that there is nothing we can do that will make God love us any more than he does right this second. The marvelous flip side of this is that there is nothing we can do that is so terrible that God will love us less than he does right this second. This grace doesn’t change as our actions get worse.
In the book of Romans there is a line that says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.” In the wake of this instance let us rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Not over the death of the individual, but in the lessening of the oppression he created. I believe that the heart of God is rejoicing right along with us and that, in this fact, the Heavens are celebrating. However, in our rejoicing let us not forget to mourn with those who mourn. When the dust settles there will still be children without a father, wives without a husband and a community that is missing a leader. How we feel or whether we agree with them does not change the fact that we are called to mourn with them in their loss.
Now is the time for us to put our faith into action. This, I believe, is the central message of Jesus. To love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have neighbors who are mourning the death of a loved one. This is a time for us to put aside out political and personal difference. To pray for them and join them in their mourning.
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