Jesus loves Osama

“Jesus loves Osama” signs appeared in front of Baptist churches in Australia earlier this year. Going against the weight of public opinion, Adele Nash says the Baptists got it right.

In late January and early February this year, a whole lot of controversy was stirred up when a number of Baptist churches around Australia put signs up that said “Jesus loves Osama,” followed by Matthew 5:44—”Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Of course, the Osama referred to on the sign was the infamous al-Qa’eda leader, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on America.

A poll run by ninemsn.com saw 81 per cent of respondants say that Jesus doesn’t love Osama bin Laden. The Australian Prime Minister John Howard suggested that the churches shouldn’t have displayed the sign.

Outspoken Christian politician Fred Nile went further and compared the posters to saying Jesus loves Hitler or Pol Pot, saying, “Certainly if you had any association with the 3000 people that were killed through bin Laden’s attack on New York, I don’t think you’d say how much you love him.” Perhaps Nile was forgetting that Jesus doesn’t just love him and the people on “Fred’s approved list,” but also loves people that many would say don’t deserve it, including Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot—even us, and even Fred.

A spokesman for the Central Baptist Church, Hy Lam, told the Australian Daily Telegraph that it was merely “sharing the gospel.” He said, “Osama is the head of terrorism. We are saying that Jesus Christ loves everyone in the world, even this man. . . . All we are doing is sharing the gospel.” 1 From the perspective of those who don’t do the church thing, many people fi nd the fact that Christians say that Jesus loves everyone, but they themselves actively hate people, ironic or hypocritical at best. But it’s so much easier to point out the mistakes that others make than modify what we do in order to attempt to actually do what Jesus would.

Just because we personally don’t like someone it doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t still love them. As uncomfortable as it may be, that’s the position we have to take as Christians if we’re wanting to do what Jesus wants us to. We’re meant to turn the other cheek and show others the grace and forgiveness God freely off ers us.

In October last year, the Amish community in a Lancaster County village in America called for the forgiveness of a gunman who killed fi ve young girls he took hostage in the community’s school. Only two days after the fatal shootings, the community was reaching out to the family of the gunman, who suicided during the attack, off ering them love and forgiveness.

The Amish community actively chose not to balance hurt with hate, but show forgiveness and grace.

The New Testament word that’s usually translated as grace is the Greek word charis —it literally means “gift.” God’s grace is His gift to us, made possible by Jesus coming to earth and dying for everyone. (Read the Bible and you fi nd Jesus still came to die for a whole lot of people who didn’t like Him. He still loved them all.) After all, we’ve all sinned and need forgiveness—the magnitude of the sin doesn’t make a diff erence in how much we need God’s grace.

But there are conditions to the gift of grace, even though it’s free.

We need to actively participate in the process of grace—it’s not about simply accepting it, but living it as well. God’s grace can cover all sins, but that doesn’t give carte blanche on sin as long as we ask for forgiveness later.

Dietrich Bonhoeff er explores this in The Cost of Discipleship , declaring the teaching of grace without the teaching of the need to change “cheap grace.” He saw this as being the enemy of the church as it means “the justifi cation of sin without the justifi cation of the sinner. . . . Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” 2 What is needed is “costly grace,” and Bonhoeff er uses Jesus’ parable of the treasure hidden in the fi eld (see Matthew 13:44) to show that great sacrifi ces often provide even greater rewards. Costly grace means it’s something to be sought and asked for continually as we follow Jesus. For grace to be available for everyone who’s ever lived, it cost Jesus His life, which Bonhoeff er says is the ultimate sacrifi ce and ultimate gift.

Being a follower of Jesus isn’t easy—the straight and narrow path is called that for a good reason. We mightn’t be martyrs or put in prison or have to choose between God and family, but there can still be some pretty tough requirements when living how God wants us to. (Check out the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 -7 for more on this.) Costly grace should break our hearts, but also bring us close to God and build a stronger relationship with Him. Reducing essential elements of Christianity to feel-good experiences misses the point of faith, grace and salvation, because none of it is designed to keep us in our comfort zone.

Costly grace can cost us everything on earth. But there are eternal rewards, even for people we mightn’t like but have chosen to accept God’s grace—after all, they might be equally surprised if you’ve accepted it too.

What’s the Bible got to say about grace and salvation?
> “And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me fi r≠st Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuff ering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:14-17, KJV).

> “John testifi es concerning him. He cries out, saying, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (John 1:15-18, NIV).

> “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NIV).

> “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucifi ed but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10-12, NIV).

> “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are” (Acts 15:11, NIV).

> “. . . if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justifi ed, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, ‘Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ For there is no diff erence between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Romans 10:9-13, NIV).

1. “Church’s ‘Jesus loves Osama’ sign criticised,” Matthew Moore, February 2, 2007; www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ news/2007/02/01/wosama101.xml.
2. Dietrich Bonhoeff er, The Cost of Discipleship , SCM Press Ltd, London, 1959, pages 35-6.