I wept for a man executed for crimes against humanity

I have cried when friends and loved ones have died. I have cried when friends of friends have died. I have even cried when someone famous has died, or a stranger has died but yet were "good people". I remember bawling while watching a YouTube video of a dying dad walk his unwed daughters down the aisle since he knew he only had a few months left to live.

In movies, we are made to hate the villain and therefore we rejoice when they are killed off and we cry if the hero dies. I think we all cried when we watched Jack die in the movie "Titanic". Yet, I never expected to cry for an awful man who killed hundreds of thousands of people. It went against everything in me.

But the reality is that death is death whether they are the villain or the hero. The Bible tells us that we are all made in the image of God and all have value to Him no matter what we have done in our life. In the eyes of God no life is worth more than another. Even the worst sinner in the world has value.

I remember the day as if it was yesterday, the day I bawled when an 'awful man' was executed. It was 30 December 2006. This day might not mean much to you but for me it was a day my heart broke for a man named Saddam Hussein.

I remember how excited I was a few years earlier when they had finally caught Saddam and he was going stand trial for his horrible crimes. The outcome of the trial was that he was to be executed. After all he needed to be held responsible for the crimes against his people. His date of execution was set for the 30 December 2006.

The week leading up to his death God started to stir my heart for this horrible man. God was revealing to me that He sent his son to die for Saddam Hussein, just like He sent Jesus to die on the cross for me. This was hard to hear. How can Jesus love a man like Saddam, how can Jesus offer Him forgiveness? His crimes were too big, after all … 'Jesus in case you didn't know he killed hundreds of thousands. Surely there is a limit to your forgiveness. Surely in heaven we won't find bad people like this.'

Jesus came to die not for the good but for the bad. According to scriptures, we are all bad; we have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. And the penalty of sin is death. So according to scripture we are all deserving of a death penalty, but in God's mercy He sent His son to die for us, not the good but the bad people of this world.

God was revealing to me that there is no difference between me and Saddam Hussein in His eyes. Sure my sin is not noticeable as Saddam's because I have never killed or tortured anybody. But I have lied, I have been mad and held a grudge at people, I am prideful and arrogant. These are my sins and therefore my penalty should be death. The funny thing though is that I look at someone who has killed hundreds of thousands of people and I think that God would love them less than me.

That week I began to pray that Saddam would come to know the Lord and that he would accept the forgiveness of the Christ and turn from his ways just like I had. That he would repent from his ways and be like the man next to Jesus on the cross, who in his final hour chose Christ over the world. I was not seeing Saddam through my eyes but through Jesus' eyes of mercy and grace.

On 30 December 2006, I remember driving on the bus on our way to do ministry in Airlie Beach, when the radio announced that Saddam had been executed, my heart sunk. My eyes filled with tears of grief and sorrow and I wept in that moment. I thought of this man not as a horrendous man who did horrible things, but rather as a man who might be eternally separated from a loving forgiving God. No longer could I pray that this man would have his heart convicted by God, for now his fate was sealed. One day I will find out what decision Saddam made in those final hours alone. My prayer is that he chose Christ.

When was the last time you prayed for the bad guy? Next time you turn on the television or Internet and hear about the evil being done in the world, begin to pray for the men and women who are committing these crimes. They too are sinners in need of a saviour.

How exciting is the thought that heaven is going to be filled with all sorts of different sinners, people who were the worse of the worse but who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. People we don't think deserve to be there, by human standards will be there, and the truth is that none of us deserve heaven, that is why it is called the 'grace of God.'

Genevieve Wilson is married with two children who served with YWAM for eight years in Brisbane and now serving in mission in Canada as a modern day abolitionist.

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