Powerful letter to Al Shabaab by Ciku Muiruri

April 5, 2015

40

Dear Al-Shabaab,You have claimed responsibility for taking the lives of 147 Christian students. I’m sad for their families who have to live with the loss but I’m not sad for the students themselves. Theirs is a beautiful death. If I were to choose the manner in which I died, let it be such – As a defender of my faith. I assume you deliberately chose this time because it is Easter, the time Christ laid down His life for us all, yes, even for you.

Why? To mock Him perhaps? Well, I have news for you Al-Shabaab, you are not the first. On this day over 2000 years ago there was an angry mob that mocked Him, jeered Him and made fun of Him, baying for His blood. There were Roman soldiers who spit on Him, beat Him, yanked out His beard, whipped Him, put a crown of thorns on His head, and nailed Him cruelly to the cross. They had rejected Him as their Messiah even though they knew exactly who and what He was. They had seen His miracles, they had heard His words. Who knows what causes men to deliberately do what is wrong? To deliberately choose the evil path? I don’t know. All I know is that Jesus looked to the criminals alongside Him, at the mobs, soldiers and religious leaders and said: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.

”The cross didn’t kill Jesus. The Romans didn’t kill Jesus. The Sadducees and Pharisees didn’t kill Jesus. Jesus willingly gave up His earthly life for precisely the scene He was witnessing. He paid the penalty for the sins that we commit in our ignorance (and even the ones we’ve committed deliberately).

So to all you Al-Shabaab guys who have killed my Christian brothers and sisters, I forgive you. Yes, you heard me right. I forgive you. As you fill your heart with hate (Just as those angry mobs did 2000 years ago), I will fill my heart with love -as Jesus did – for truly you not know what you do. I’m not mourning. I have JOY in my heart this Good Friday and I’ll tell you why. Jesus will die at 3pm and rise again. So will the students you have slain. Yes, they will rise. Eternal life is promised to all that believe in Him. Kill us all. We will rise.

Your plan to put a damper on Easter has merely served to remind me why I observe it in the first place – People like you. You are the reason He died on the cross, to give you salvation if you repent. I don’t hate you. I love you. I forgive you.