“We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 5:8)
I believe the above verse; and I wonder just what Tim McVeigh thought when his spirit left his body and he saw God.
Interestingly, McVeigh chose not to offer any last words that might have brought some comfort to the families of the 168 people he killed. Instead, he chose to portray himself as the one who was suffering, a martyr. “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul,” he wrote, quoting from one of his favorite poems.
He was also apparently unrepentant, too, because again, quoting from the same poem, he said:
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
I for one am glad I wasn’t standing in line behind him when he stood before the Father to account for his life. But while my sins are no smaller than his, they are covered by the blood of Jesus. I just hope Tim McVeigh knew the Lord, too.
Actually I did a little more than hope for Tim McVeigh. I prayed for him, asking God to reach down and save his soul. I sure hope He answered my prayer because I don’t want anyone to spend his eternity in hell.
Now, listen. Before you go off and write the editor asking how I could possibly hope that God would save the most notorious terrorist our country has ever known, think about what Jesus said: “But I tell you this: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:44-45)
Any Christian knows that salvation doesn’t remove the consequences that come from sin. Tim McVeigh deserved to be put to death for what he did. But beyond the grave, I believe it’s wrong to hope and pray that anyone would “rot in hell”. What’s more, I don’t believe the Bible supports the hatred that I saw accompany the conclusion of a painful national tragedy.
So the broader question is what do we do from this point forward? For starters, we should pray for the McVeigh family asking God to comfort them, just like we’ve been asking Him to comfort the family members of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. We could pray that the bitterness we saw in the eyes of those family members will soon be replaced with forgiveness and understanding because we know what the Bible says about bitterness: “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. (Hebrews 12:15)
We could also ask God to teach us to be more like Jesus; to learn to see things as Christ would see them. After all, isn’t that what sanctification is all about?
It’s too late to pray for Tim McVeigh. He is gone and his destiny has long been determined. He finally understands that he is not the master of his fate or the captain of his soul. Perhaps we could learn something from his death because the same is true for us.
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