Chaplain's Corner

4 months ago, on Sunday evening, May 1st, I was just about to turn in for the night when a special news item flashed across the screen of the late night news. In the minutes that followed, I watched the President of the United States announce that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of special operatives of the United States made up of CIA and Navy Seal personnel. Outside the White House a crowd gathered, as well as on the streets of New York City on the site where the World Trade Center once stood. There was celebrating in the streets, cheering, jubilation, over the death of Osama bin Laden. As my wife and I watched, there was an uneasiness in our souls over the celebratory nature of the people’s response.

By the time I arrived at work the next morning, I understood the reason, at least my reason, for the uneasiness about the jubilation. Two verses from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel came to my mind. In both those verses God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked…” (Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11). That’s it, if God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, why should we?

What does this have to do with my work?  Well, not every death I am called to deal with is an easy one. There are times when the dying person was a wonderful, loving person who is surrounded by siblings and children, grandchildren and friends who speak of how deeply they were loved and how they will miss that love. But there are other times when the person dying was an abusive person, who beat his wife or sexually abused his daughters, or was just generally a wicked person who thought of no one but himself and care for nothing that wasn’t personally beneficial. There are times the person dying treated everyone who should have cared with such disregard and disrespect that the fact that anyone was present at the death was a miracle in itself.

That also explains why there are some who die virtually alone. Because the hospital staff may have no knowledge of the person prior to the final hospitalization, the staff can be judgmental of those who don’t come – understandably so; there is something within each of us that instinctively feels that a person should not die alone. Yet, if we could hear the stories of the way the person lived, the hatred, the bitterness, the relational disregard, the abuse, it becomes understandable why everyone who might have cared was alienated and there was no one at the end.

Maybe you have been fortunate enough to have lived in a family and in a community in which there was no one like this. If that is your experience, you should thank God. Unfortunately in my pastoral work and now in my work as a chaplain, I have become privileged to hear the stories of families who had members who were nothing short of wicked. I have known families who had members who were unrepentant murders, rapists, child sexual abusers, wife and child beaters. I have talked to sons who rejoiced in the day that they were as big as and stronger than their Dad so that they could give their Dad a beating and make it clear that no longer could Dad abuse Mom at will. I have cared for the dear persons who were their victims. I have seen the tragic, deep emotional and spiritual scars that were left by men who mistreated their families  sometimes even “in the name of the Lord.”

I have counseled some of these folks when the abuser is dying. Many of them are conflicted. On one hand, they are happy that finally, the person who caused such pain and anguish in their life will finally be gone, yet they know that even once the person is gone, the pain will go on; that the death will not end the pain.

Yet even in these people’s lives, I rarely found jubilation at the death. Instead, I encountered deep sorrow. The kind of sorrow that mourns what might have been and that mourns the deep rebellion that prevented the person from ever expressing remorse over the way he/she lived. In those few times I did encounter jubilation, it was shortly followed by this sorrow, the sorrow that understands that the death resolved nothing, in fact, it left everything unresolved. It ended that family member’s opportunity to ever make things right and in all likelihood, save a deathbed conversion, plunged that person into an eternity of alienation from God’s love.

It is my guess that the victims of the 9/11 terrorist events have little joy over Osama bin Laden’s demise. It is my guess that in this case the death of one hardly even begins to compensate for the deaths of so many and the lives of their loved ones and friends that to this day live with the consequences of this man’s orders. It is my sense that jubilation over Osama bin Laden’s death was more a knee jerk reaction to the frustration of him having eluded the countries efforts to capture him for nearly ten years.

There is a lot of wickedness in our world. No, we don’t use that word “wickedness” much; we have almost eliminated these harsh words for sin from our vocabulary. We have a hard time, even in churches,  with the words “depravity”, “sin”, “transgression”, ”iniquity”, “evil”,  “evil doer”, “wicked” and the like. We prefer less harsh words like “mistake” or “error” or “misstep” but the fact is, in God’s eyes, according to the Scriptures, we are all sinners, incapable of pleasing God, no matter how hard we try. The fact is, my destiny as a decent guy, who has tried hard to be a good husband and father, worked hard, given to others and generally been a law keeper is the same as the fellow who lived his life in and out of jail, abusing and using people for his own ends, caring little for nothing but himself:  That destiny- eternal separation from God.

Only God himself has the power to deal with this deep wickedness, this depravity that separates us from him. God’s solution is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the perfect man and perfect God. That is what the Christian faith is all about. It is about God providing a solution for our wickedness, so that we might be saved from eternal hell. That is why God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked – because there was a way out, there was a solution, there was salvation – if only the person would have believed.

Osama bin Laden is dead, I’m sorry, but I can’t rejoice, he went into eternity separated from God and will suffer eternal punishment. There is nothing to rejoice about in that. Yes it was just, yes, it was the destiny he deserved, for he had most likely never turned to Jesus, but it is sad, for even God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor should we.