Years ago this country witnessed the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the man responsible for the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. A USA Today poll taken in April showed that 81 percent of Americans wanted McVeigh to be executed -- and 28 percent of that support was from people who are normally against the death penalty. No matter where you stand on the issue of capital punishment, this particular execution has forced itself on our consciousness. One thing that particularly caught my attention was that in lieu of any verbal comment, McVeigh gave a handwritten statement to the warden, quoting a section of the poem "Invictus," which is Latin for "unconquered." That poem, by 19th-century British poet William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), reads in part "I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul." In case you haven't heard the poem, it goes like this:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

From what we've learned of McVeigh's attitudes and opinions, those lines probably come as close as any to a philosophy of life for him. Even to the point of ending the appeals process, McVeigh sought to be the master of his fate. But of course he's not. And in a letter written just a day before his death, he demonstrated how little he understood that. He wrote that if it turned out that there was an afterlife, he would "improvise, adapt and overcome." As if he or any of us will have the ability to affect our environment after arrival in the world to come! Once we are at the judgment seat of God, none of us is any longer master of our fate.

It's worth noting that when the poet Henley wrote those words, he was not thinking of setting his own standard of morality, as McVeigh appears to have done. Far from claiming the right to be judge, jury and executioner of others, Henley was vocalizing his attitude toward the hurts and setbacks of life. At the age of 12, he developed tubercular arthritis, and his left foot was amputated in his teens. He had other health problems later on, and actually wrote "Invictus" while once again in the hospital, too ill to work. He was, as his poem says, "bloody, but unbowed." For Henley, "Invictus" was an expression of courage in the face of life's difficulties, not a license to kill.

McVeigh sounds an awful lot like the attitude of the legion of demons. The demons knew, once they saw Jesus’ boat land near their home town, that their days were numbered. So, they start bartering with Jesus. What are you doing here? What do you want with us? Please, don’t torture us. (There’s a hypocritical request if I ever heard one. They had been torturing this poor man for years and now they are begging for mercy.) Finally, knowing that they would have to leave their host they asked to be sent into a heard of nearby pigs. When this happens the pigs become disoriented and throw themselves along with the demons over the cliff and into the sea where they drown. McVeigh perhaps felt he could master his own fate even the fate that befalls us in the afterlife. Perhaps he will find what he is looking for but the demons did not; they bartered, got what they wanted, and lost!

The full sermon can be found on Sermons.com by doing a Scripture search for Luke 12, the sermon titled, "God, The Enemy."