A dead murderer

A couple of verses quoted this morning:

"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice" (Ps 24:17).

"When the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness" (Proverbs 11:10).

Which proves, if nothing else, that the way to respond to complex matters is not to pick individual verses from the Bible. And if one book of all in the Bible was not designed for proof-texting, it would be Proverbs, which also advises us that we both should and shouldn't answer a fool in his folly, and we should give poor people plenty of alcohol to help them get over it. I'm going to have to go with "love your enemies" if I want a proof-text in this instance.

I can't be too sad that Osama Bin Laden is dead. Not because we should rejoice over any death. Nor because of some hope that it may remove Bin Laden's inspirational effect. A martyr is more powerful than a hiding, ageing fugitive and dead men can move millions. But because it may - may - reduce the strategic vision of his organisation. The "expert" I'm currently watching on telly is telling me that he wasn't still in charge of Al Quaeda strategy. But he's clearly not expert enough to have known where Bin Laden was hiding out.

It would be better, in an ideal world, if Bin Laden had been captured and put on trial properly - and it would have been better if that had been in a state without the death penalty - but if that had ever happened who knows how many hostages would have been taken to demand his release.

But any premature death is a tragedy. Once upon a time, the little Osama was somebody's baby boy. I don't know what his parents' hopes and fears for him were, but they probably didn't include being hunted down to a reinforced hideout in the Pakistan countryside. They probably didn't involve sponsoring others to fly planes into skyscrapers. He was made in the image of God, tarnished as it is in all of us to a degree. And he will never have known faith in his Saviour.

So we've pulled all the bunting down from the Community. We're waving no flags and certainly putting up no scoreboards. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Let's pray there will be fewer premature deaths from now on. That's all.