What do you do when an impossibly evil person like Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein dies? Do you do as Saddam's executioner and mentally dance a jig around their dead body? Or do you weep at the prospect of another human soul who is perhaps in hell? Or do you say a prayer and somehow ask God's mercy, even for such a one as this? Even while wondering if such a prayer is merely a useless gesture on your part?
How does love your enemies fit in with all this?
I didn't plan on starting my new year with tears streaming down my face over the death of a brutal evil dictator. It's all the drudgereport's fault, I suppose, for putting his dead face surrounded by a hangman's noose on the website.
But he's dead. And God made him. And Christ died for him even if he spurned that fact. Even if in this life his life was an extension of hell. Perhaps he needed to die. He probably did. And we humans can take life so easily, just like he did. What a mess.
God have mercy, Christ have mercy on the soul of this departed man. He's undeserving. And so am I.
How does love your enemies fit in with all this?
I didn't plan on starting my new year with tears streaming down my face over the death of a brutal evil dictator. It's all the drudgereport's fault, I suppose, for putting his dead face surrounded by a hangman's noose on the website.
But he's dead. And God made him. And Christ died for him even if he spurned that fact. Even if in this life his life was an extension of hell. Perhaps he needed to die. He probably did. And we humans can take life so easily, just like he did. What a mess.
God have mercy, Christ have mercy on the soul of this departed man. He's undeserving. And so am I.
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I spent the night before his expected execution awake most of the night, praying that God would have mercy on him and open his heart to repentance.
He was a sinner, I too am a sinner. I am no better than him.
Lord have mercy upon us all.
So I can't write the whole thing again, but will just say -- I hear you.