MortiBlog

I just wanted to make a quick blog post to express my thoughts on the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, convicted murderer of 270 people. I must stress though that I don’t know anybody who was affected by the tragedy and my understanding of the case is limited entirely to what I’ve been watching on BBC News last night and for the last couple of hours. I’ve been following this news with interest because it’s so rare that we see an example of pure grace in international news.

Let’s look at what happens now. The relationship between Scotland and the US will be sour, the families of the people who died in the 1988 tragedy will understandably be upset and feel that justice is not being served. The only recognisable and universally acknowledged goodness that comes from this applies solely to Mr al-Megrahi, a mass murderer, and his family. Despite this I believe that the Scottish government did the right thing.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi did not show any compassion for his victims, he did not allow his victims the luxury of returning to their families to live out their last days. He committed a terrible act which is entirely indefensible and just how bad it was isn’t something that I or anyone else can express. So why would anyone show him grace and compassion? To most people it’s a massive scandal, it doesn’t make any sense.

I’m reminded of the old saying “two wrongs don’t make a right”. It sounds overly simplified and it probably is but saying that he showed no compassion is not a reason that we also should avoid compassion. Of course he doesn’t deserve to be released back to his family, I’m not saying that, after what he did he certainly could never deserve that. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care about him and show him compassion though.

Something that has been confusing me about all this is the response from America, with people saying that there was already compassion shown to him when he was given a life sentence; presumably the implication is that he should receive a death sentence. This is what I don’t understand, when many Americans say “we love Jesus, also we like the death sentence” they are showing a complete misunderstanding of the gospel and it’s very sad to see.

The Bible tells us that we are all sinners and that all sin is equally abhorrent to God. Me, you, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi… none of us is perfect so all of us have done something wrong. God’s response? Grace. Absolute total undeserved grace. To put it simply, how do you think you could possibly deserve life in the first place? Life is an amazing gift and however much pain you go through in life it’s great that you get the opportunity to live it in the first place and to have free thought and, mostly, freedom to pursue whatever passions take your fancy.

God not only gave us life and free will in the first place but when we strayed from Him we weren’t left to our own devices. God’s response to us rejecting Him was to send Jesus to die for us on the cross and rise again, defeating death, so that not only do we have life but we have the option of eternal life. None of us deserve it, it’s a massive scandal, but it’s the love of God. It’s nonsensical, we will never fully understand just how much God loves us and how He loved us enough to give up His only son to the most painful death anybody has ever experienced or will ever experience. We’ve all seen The Passion of The Christ or at least the promotional material for it, that only goes some way to describing the pain Jesus went through. The biggest pain of all, for Father and Son, was the separation. They had been together loving one another in a perfect relationship since before the universe was created and the pain of their separation was so much greater than the pain Jesus suffered from His wounds for our sins.

So why then do so many Americans believe that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi should die in prison or be given the death sentence? God showed so much grace to us that we never deserved, why should this man not get the same? The abhorrence of his crimes to us is less than the abhorrence of our crimes against God and yet God sent His only son to die for us. In fact more than that, if Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was the only man in the world Jesus would have died for him.

There was a woman on BBC News just now, I don’t know who she was, claiming that releasing this murderer showed weakness. I don’t see how. The easy thing to do would be to deny the appeal, America is a big country and the vast amount of people there (and in the UK it seems) want him to rot in jail. That would have been the weak choice. What Kenny MacAskill did was so difficult but he remains strong in his conviction that this is the right decision. That takes more guts than most people have and doesn’t show any weakness at all. Grace and compassion are hard things to do, it’s so much easier to follow the majority and pass judgement. I applaud Mr MacAskill for what he did today and pray that this decision won’t lead to the end of his career. He should go down in history as a man who made the difficult choice and took responsibility for that choice which the UK government was not willing to take.

Mr al-Megrahi does not deserve freedom but who among us does? I submit to you that all the good that we have is a result of God’s grace for us and MacAskill’s decision to free al-Megrahi was a small example of how grace works and how all of us are made in His image. I don’t think anybody has the capacity for love and grace that God has, I don’t think I could sacrifice my only son to give al-Megrahi eternal life, but being made in God’s image we have a smaller but still significant capacity for grace and compassion and that has been shown today by Mr MacAskill.

I pray that the victims of the Lockerbie bombing will be able to experience God’s grace themselves, that their questions about the tragedy would be answered and that they will be able to go on with their lives. I cannot begin to understand what they dealt with in 1988, what they are dealing with now and what they have to deal with for their whole lives as a result of that terrible tragedy. I know I have a tendency to muscle in with my opinion without thought for those who could be hurt by it so I feel I should emphasise that while I feel Mr MacAskill made the right decision today in showing compassion I don’t want to belittle the pain and suffering felt by people on that day and since.

As it stands this is undiluted grace with no conceivable good outcomes for those people hurt by the bombing. My hope is that out of this an enquiry would come for the good of the people of Lockerbie. More important to my mind though is the example of grace and compassion shown with a great amount of bravery and how it reflects, in some small way, the mind and heart of God. I think it would be good for us to use this as a chance to look at ourselves and our flaws and how many good things we’ve received despite those flaws.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV): For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Luke 6:35-37 (ESV): But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Amen.